


the blackberries in the thickets

by newsbypostcard



Series: A Tree Grows In Brooklyn [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Domesticity, Identity, Insomnia, M/M, Minor Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Politics, Post-Civil War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Red Room Program, Sexual Content, Sharing Clothes, Winter Soldier Program, the food network
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-09-25 19:26:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9840632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: These are the ways they find to forge forward, when it's time to come home. But that's not to say it goes as planned.(Post Civil War, they go back to America.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as a standalone post-Civil War fic, assuming Steve worked the Winter Soldier protocol out of Bucky's head while they stayed several months in Wakanda. As per series canon, they returned to the US around May, 2017, so assume this takes place a short time after then in a nondescript location on the Eastern Seaboard.

  


  


  


Bucky's heavily engrossed in _The Great British Bakeoff_ when Steve gets home.

He looks comfortable, in a way; he's sitting on the floor, knees drawn high, a blanket draped over his head and body so only is face is poking out. It is also a strange way to be sitting: in front of an empty sofa, on the floor, face pale and illuminated by the glow of the television, darkness having long since otherwise fallen around him.

"Hey," Steve says. He throws his keys on the counter.

"You get 'em?"

Steve hits a lightswitch in the kitchen and spreads out eight driver's licences in front of him like a fan. "You are James Buchanan -- like the President -- from Illinois, Nevada, California, and New Jersey. I am Grant Stevens -- wanted to be Ulysses Grant, but Nat said two dead presidents living at the same address might sound a little fishy -- from Florida, Connecticut, Washington, and New York."

Bucky frowns at him. "How come you get New York?"

"Just worked out that way."

"My ass. You rigged it."

Steve smiles; throws the licenses on the counter and moves to sit down beside Bucky on the floor. "You think anyone's gonna look at you and think 'New York'? Please."

"What are you talking about? I'm the epitome of New York. It's _you_ who's California."

"I'm nothing like California."

"Everywhere you listed for me is way more you. Grant Stevens, Chicago artsy type. Look at that Jersey beard."

"Jersey beard isn't a thing."

"It's a thing and you have it."

"But I have to be Florida."

"Only one of yours that fits."

Steve smiles at him, chest warming. "You can be New York next identity change, how about that?"

"Holding you to it." Bucky reaches a hand through the face hole in his blanket dome and tries to find the bag of chips he hasn't already finished; finds it on the third try. It boasts the inexplicable flavour combination of cheddar and sour cream. Steve thinks about it for a second when Bucky offers it to him, but ultimately reasons he's got nothing to lose and puts his hand into the bag.

"Kind of blasphemous to be eating junk food while watching the Great British Bake-Off, isn't it?" Steve remarks.

"Can't get enough of it. I've been watching it all day. Tore through the first two series already."

"I watched Season 5, I think. Last year."

"Yeah?" Bucky nods to the laptop set up in the other corner of the room. "I downloaded this one from your computer."

"You did?"

"Research was enlightening. People seem worried about the NSA."

"Natasha tried explaining all that to me once. Freedom of… data..." He pulls a face. "Don't ask me."

"Well, if I blew our cover, it was for a good cause."

"Tarts."

"Exactly."

Steve picks the bag of chips up from where Bucky dropped them on the floor. They are, to his consternation, extremely good. "So what season is this?"

"Six." He pulls a face, as though displeased. "Got weirdly slapstick after season 2."

"Did it?"

"Terrible puns now. Sue and Mel keep using cartoon voices. Paul Hollywood hasn't said 'danger zone' in a while, though, so that's an improvement."

"I always wondered if that was his real name."

"It is. I looked it up." Bucky points at Steve, his hand still not clearing the blanket. "That's what I want my next name to be, by the way. Bucky Hollywood."

Steve smiles around a mouthful of chips. "We didn't think that was _this_ guy's real name. It's not exactly a convincing cover."

"Not until they look it up. I'll show them my expensive fake ID and they'll know my name is Bucky Hollywood, and that'll settle it; I'll be Bucky Hollywood from then on."

"Just like that, huh?"

"That or I kill them."

Steve nods. "Aha."

"Hey -- once that precedent's set, they'll see you and totally believe you're Ulysses Grant."

"You've really thought this through, huh?"

Bucky shrugs a little. "Possible I thought it up a few episodes ago."

Steve nods; watches him a minute. "You really been watching this all day?"

"Yup," he grinds out.

"Sitting... here?" Steve looks into the bag of chips. "On the floor?"

"It's fine," he says shortly.

"I'm sure it is."

Bucky sighs, head falling back against the couch cushion behind him. "I -- was on the sofa for a while," he says. Steve sees the worry lines reappear around his eyes, his mouth. "But the sun went down, and the windows are... large… plus, you weren't... lower ground just seemed the thing to do."

Steve's stomach drops. He studies him closely. "I'm sorry, Buck."

"Hardly your fault."

Steve forces his gaze away from him and eats another chip, watching Paul Hollywood stare a contestant unfairly down. 

"Was it that the sun set?" he asks eventually.

"Forget it," Bucky grunts.

"What can I do to help?"

"You mean apart from shutting up?"

"Apart from that."

Bucky grinds his teeth and stares at the television. "You can go back to 1940 and take me on the lam."

Steve gives a wan smile. "Yeah, alright. We could make it work. Bumming across the country, you and me. Make like it was the Depression all over again."

"Those were the days, huh?"

"Mooch off the land for food, strip scarecrows for clothing. Why not?"

"Just gotta invent that time machine."

Steve shrugs. "Well, I'm not doing anything."

"I'll manage the physics, you design it. We'll scavenge the materials ourselves." 

"Hell, I'm surprised we haven't put one together already."

"Fucking pathetic, how lazy we are." Bucky takes the bag of chips out of Steve's hand and pulls it under the blanket with him, apparently concerned at the rate of their disappearance. 

Steve wipes his hand dispassionately on his jeans and watches as Paul and Mary conspire about soggy bottoms. 

"I can text," he says, after a while. "With an ETA. If it'll help."

"Steve..."

"I'm just saying -- if you want to know when I'll be back, you can ask. Unless I'm in active combat or out of range, I'll respond. It's easy."

"You done?"

Steve nods and lifts himself up onto the sofa; puts one leg on Bucky's other side. "I'm done," he promises. He pulls the blanket gently off from over his head; runs his fingers through his hair. The tension ekes out of Bucky's shoulders with every stroke, and by the time the biscotti are out of the oven Bucky's leaned his head against Steve's knee, his arm snaking out from under the blanket to wrap around his ankle.

They speak only to oppose the judgments, or to make fun of the contestants; and they watch three more episodes this way, wrapped up in one another.

This is how they begin their lives as international fugitives.

  


  


  


It's not that it's perfect. It is very far from perfect. But at the end of the day, they both come _home,_ and that's… well. It's a start.

Steve had once wondered if he'd ever have this again. Two years ago he'd stood in Clint’s home and wondered when he'd stopped trying to cultivate his own. He just hadn't seen the point. He hadn't known where Bucky was. He hadn't known if Bucky'd known him. He hadn't known anything except that Bucky was out there, that they had no leads, and that he might never find him again in any sense of the word.

Now he has him, in every sense of the word. 

Not that it's the same. Not that either one of them is the same.

He'd had no expectations. Even when he'd broken into Bucky's apartment in Bucharest, he hadn't thought it would go any particular way. He'd known he would fight like hell to hold onto him, but he didn't know if it would be enough.

Somehow, it was.  
Somehow, they're here.

Somehow, Steve's getting back the domestic life he'd long since left behind — with the person he'd left it off with.

That's the most nonsensical thing about it -- the thing that still gets him, that thrills at his heart. He had thought that, if he ever wanted a shot at settling down, he'd have to find a way to move on. God knows he'd tried. Out of some combination of dread and fear, he'd disengaged from the search for Bucky for months at a time. Sam had taken it over. Natasha had kept trying to set him up on dates. Steve had even taken her up on a couple, if they'd culminated in catastrophic boredom.

Moving on's never been his strong suit. This time, it happened to pay off.

Bucky leaves for the market every morning. He's gone for hours at a time; Steve doesn't ask where he goes. He doesn't follow. Bucky comes home with ingredients for lunch. He fixes it in careful silence that Steve doesn't dare interrupt, so he reads a book or a report, or watches him from the couch. 

The afternoon becomes theirs: Steve always feels compelled to him, somehow, like having him come home starts them on some gravity. Steve is drawn to his softness. They take quiet moments. They lie on the floor with their hands entwined, or just with Steve leaning Bucky against the fridge -- smiling, elated, kissing him until Steve finds those tiny sounds in Bucky's throat that make them both go stupid. 

This is not so different: how easy it is to seek comfort in the physical. Every room in their apartment is soon forced to intercept their boundless passion. Bucky sometimes pulls away, and Steve is bound to respect that, but more often than that he pulls him in; and Steve blows him in the kitchen, the pantry, their study, the floor. About half the time they make it back to the bed and Bucky fucks Steve stupid until he's moaning or mute. They sprung on the bed, it's the best place in the house, and after a while they buy a second TV they can eat brie naked _while_ in bed _while_ watching the Great British Bakeoff. 

This is almost the thing that Steve loves the most: when they're covered in crumbs and lazy and sated. This is the kind of thing that makes a house a home. 

Other things that make a house a home: the way Bucky makes a harsh noise in his throat every time Knockoff Paul appears on the screen. "I hate that guy," he says for the thousandth time; and Steve laughs, he loves him.

It's Bucky. Just Bucky.

Steve knows that he's hopeless. It's just: he doesn't mind. Steve leans over and kisses him more often than he should, and all the crumbs on his chest fall onto Bucky’s. 

Bucky complains, but Steve just crawls further on top of him and kisses him all the harder. It may be "weird as hell" and "gross, Rogers, frankly," but at the same time it’s _wonderful_ , it’s everything Steve’s ever wanted -- to be able to be so pedestrian as to be gross. To be able to kiss Bucky among crumbs, between wisecracks. For the first time since Bucky left for basic training, Steve feels something other than _wrong_. Everything that's happened since the war starts to kind of make sense, if it means they wound up here.

At least, until Bucky's eyes flit to the window every time the wind blows too hard.

It's too easy, sometimes, for Steve to forget he's gotten the better end of the deal.

For all there is to face, Bucky faces it head on. A thunderstorm hits in their second week home and Bucky's whole body stiffens; his fingers clench, his hands become fists. He stares out the window and thrums and he breathes, and Steve watches him in silence, knowing there's nothing he can do.

When Bucky turns to grab a hoodie and steps outside, he stands on the balcony the whole rest of the storm. He stares it down. His hands sit in his pockets, the brim of his hood blocking his periphery so the storm and the city are all he can see.

Steve makes coffee. He brings Bucky a mug, and Bucky takes it silently, nursing it with both hands until the thundering stops. Steve stands by him in silence; and when the sky starts to clear, Bucky turns to him, serious.

"Thank you," he mutters, hand trailing at Steve's hip as he pushes inside.

"What for?"

"For shutting the fuck up for once," Bucky tells him, and then he ducks wordlessly into the bedroom and shuts the door.

Steve smiles. "No problem," he tells the night. He leaves Bucky to himself. 

That happens sometimes, too. This is what Steve discovers, as the weeks wear on: Bucky does best when loved at a distance. Steve does the best he can with that. He offers as much space as he knows how, even though every inch of him quivers to put his hands over him, on any damn part of him, just to feel him there.

Bucky knows Steve's needs are different; he does his best to meet him halfway. He gives him lunchtime and thereabouts, and that's all Steve can ask. Whether by compromise or preference, he also slides into bed beside Steve and presses his face into Steve's shoulder, his chest, the crook of his neck; his hands grip at his skin, as though finding him an anchor. But most of the time, Bucky just crawls out of bed again and leaves Steve to sleep alone.

So it is very far from perfect. But, indisputably, it is home.

And Steve doesn't forget it -- not for an instant. Something keens in him, brings him to a standstill, just to see Bucky standing there. He falls in love with him every single day. He loves the way he ties back his hair; he loves the intention of his movements, the quietness of him, the way his presence fills a space. Bucky always used to fill a space, in the days they'd spent in Brooklyn, just with long looks or mundane gestures. This is one of those things that hasn't changed at all, that keeps them -- that keeps _this_ \-- eminently recognizable. 

Steve puts music on the phonograph, some days, and learns to just _be_ \-- to watch him, to feel him fill a space, unwilling to let this time pass him by.

Bucky always catches him watching. Steve smiles at him when he does, just the same as Bucky scowls.

"Rogers," Bucky clips at him, washing the dishes with his sleeves rolled up. "When are you gonna cut this out."

Steve has just entered the room to love him beyond telling; to see him moving with gentle rhythm, hair falling around his face in uneven strands.

"Do you want me to?" he asks, sincere.

Bucky only clenches his jaw. Steve smiles, full with fondness.

"I never know what you want from me," Bucky says.

"Nothing," says Steve.

"Horseshit," says Bucky.

“Put those down and dance with me, Buck."

Bucky's heard this before. He bows his head, lashes low on his cheeks. "I'm busy, Rogers. Go dance with someone else."

Steve keeps smiling and Bucky's frown fragments; lips force upward against his better efforts. Steve pushes himself forward, then; snakes a hand around his waist.

"Steve," Bucky warns, stepping away from the sink. He brandishes his hands in mock-defense, but he can't help but smile; _god_ does Steve love him. "Are you listening? My hands. Are soapy."

"Then they're soapy."

"You want to dance with an assassin with soapy hands."

"Bucky, I have never wanted anything more." Bucky's face stays bitterly blank as Steve takes him up into his arms, fingers intertwining amid suds, but it doesn't take long before his facade falls; Bucky’s lips relax into the kiss Steve offers him, his fingers spread against the back of Steve's neck. They lean into each other, find something easy, dragged out from a bygone era spent dancing in kitchens.

"I get mistyyyy," Steve sings, lips set at Bucky's brow.

"Don't," says Bucky.

"--just holding your hand--"

"Stop it."

"Walk my way," Steve carries on, not bothering to fight his budding grin, "and a thousand violins begin to play..."

A breath of fond laughter; Bucky’s lips at his jaw, a nip at his chin. "Steve."

Steve is overcome anyway, so it's easy enough to stop; and he just leans into Bucky, into the kisses he offers, soft, growing deeper, until Steve’s leaned him at the counter and started stripping off his shirt.

It may not be perfect, but Steve lives in every moment — lets it take him over, allows himself to be carried away.

If the past has taught them anything, it’s that tomorrow is never guaranteed.

  


  


  


It's about three weeks of bliss in solitude before Sam and Nat come by to visit.

Naturally, they waste no time in derailing all illusions of peace and tranquility. Steve opens the door to be immediately handed a 'housewarming cactus.' 

"We named it Barnes," Sam tells Steve dryly, just as Bucky emerges from the bedroom with a circumspect look.

Steve turns from the door and shows Bucky the cactus. "I'd have thought you'd be taller."

“Nice of you to think of me,” Bucky says, leaning on the counter. "They out of those carnivorous plants?" 

"Thought you'd resent the competition," Sam tells him.

Bucky nods in bitter rebuke as Natasha shoves a sunflower plant into Steve's other hand. "We named this one Rogers," she tells him fondly.

Affection floods Steve's chest as he turns the flower over in his hand. Emotion suddenly chokes him; he steps forward to loop his free arm around her neck. "I'm really happy to see you," he tells her, voice sticking.

“Oh. Okay.“ She pats him warmly on the back. “Glad you’re having a nice time in your feelings cave.“

Steve plants a kiss on her forehead. “Natasha, please." He nods them inside. "It’s a sex den.”

Delight dawns full on Natasha's face, while Sam merely blinks and shoulders his way into the apartment. "Here's my actual housewarming contribution," he says, hoisting a large case of beer onto the counter.

"That have actual malt in it?" Steve asks.

"Who the hell you think you're talking to? I know what you're about." Sam takes a smaller box out of a bag and stacks it on top of the beer.

Steve points. "Is that what I think it is?"

“Those teeny tiny sandwiches from Pies & Thighs you like so much? You got it.”

Steve wastes no time in prying open the box and picking up a tiny sandwich with two fingers. “I’m a giant,” he deadpans to Bucky, now sitting behind him on the counter.

“ _This_ is why you got big?” Bucky deadpans back.

“I knew tiny sandwiches were coming, what can I say.”

“Pecan pie, too,” Sam says, sliding the box across the counter toward him.

Steve shakes his head at him and finds himself blinking back that peculiar mist again. "You're too good to me, Sam."

“That’s the last time I’m playing delivery boy for you."

“You’ve more than done your duty.” He throws an arm around Sam's neck and plants a kiss on his forehead, too, patting his neck affectionately as he pulls away.

Sam narrows his eyes at him. "You're a whole different man when you get laid, aren't you?"

"Aren't we all?" Steve glances sidelong to see Bucky holding a tiny sandwich in his hand, fighting against an encroaching smile with a deliberate tightening of his mouth.

“Why not just order one big sandwich?” Bucky asks him.

“That’s what I said at first too, but they grew on me. Well -- not literally.”

Bucky looks up at Sam, circumspect. Sam shrugs. “Don’t look at me, man.”

“They’re cute,” says Natasha.

“They're incredibly stupid,” says Bucky.

“Thor can pack away like three hundred of them,” says Steve.

“Can’t wait to meet that guy.” Bucky shoves the sandwich into his mouth in one, then makes an incredulous face. It seems he has not yet stumbled on the appeal.

"You've never met Thor?" Sam asks him.

Bucky shakes his head. "Heard a bunch."

Sam smirks, for some reason. "Can't wait to see how that goes."

Steve frowns and stares at him. "Why?"

"No reason." Too innocent.

"No," Steve says, deliberate. "I'm interested."

Sam gives him a thin smile and glances up to Bucky. "No reason," he repeats slowly, eyes scanning back to Steve as he says it.

"What," says Bucky. "Is he hot?"

Steve smiles his entertainment at the ceiling. "You'd probably think so."

"He's hot," say Sam and Natasha in unison.

Bucky shrugs. "Okay."

Steve quirks an amused eyebrow at Sam until he finally looks away, mouth thin. “Speaking of striking blondes," Steve says, grinning as he twists the top off a beer, "how’d it go at Barton’s?”

"Fine," Natasha says at once; but it sounds _horribly_ evasive. 

Sam looks at Steve, and then at Natasha, and grabs a beer with a steadying sigh. “Well, it was definitely something."

Steve's amusement drops away. "Oh? Problem?"

Sam gestures widely, like he's not sure where to start. "Maximoff sends her regards.”

“Oh, good. She recovering from the Raft okay?”

“Nightmares, Barton says; occasional bursts of rage. Nothing too surprising given what she’s been through. Barton seems to have an affinity with her the way you did, so it seems like a good situation. She and Laura joke a lot, she likes the kids, she’s learning a bunch. Everyone seems to think it’s sustainable for the time being.”

“So what’s weird about it?”

Natasha looks at Sam. Sam looks at Natasha.

"Don't panic," Natasha placates.

"It's a S.H.I.E.L.D. base," Sam reports flatly.

Whatever Steve had expected, it wasn't that. “It's -- _what?_ What is it?”

“Apparently that’s been the case for a while," Sam says, "since Barton got back to the States."

"It's not a major one," Natasha says, "but--”

"Whoa," Steve says. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't _exist_ anymore." He looks to Natasha. " _Right?_ "

Natasha purses her lips. "S.H.I.E.L.D. never actually died, Steve."

" _What?_ " 

"It's just been working underground for the last few years. It became a small operation, mostly concerned with keeping Inhuman threats under the radar. They weren't affecting much globally, so it seemed smartest to let them be."

Steve looks at her, then at Sam, then at Bucky, who is studying a miniature sandwich with peculiar interest. Steve realizes with sudden clarity that he's the only one in the room who didn't know about this. " _You_ knew?" he asks Bucky.

Bucky looks at him, slow and reluctant. "Romanov's not wrong," he says. "It wasn't big enough to represent a threat. The resurrection tech freaks me out, but apart from that there was nothing to--"

"The --- _resurrection tech?_ "

Bucky looks pointedly at Natasha. Natasha sighs. "Okay. Remember Phil Coulson?"

"Sure," says Steve.

"He's alive," says Natasha.

Steve stares at her. "No he's not."

"Yes," Natasha says, nodding slowly. "He is."

"No, he died. Loki killed him."

"You're right. And then Fury brought him back."

"What? Fury -- _what?_ "

"It's a long story. The gist is that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been operating illegally but cordially at a low level since the organization collapsed--"

Steve looks incredulously at Sam, who merely shrugs.

"--and now that the Sokovia Accords have made them legal again--"

"Whoa," Steve says again, putting his beer hard down on the counter. "What's _this_ now?"

"The Sokovian Accords made S.H.I.E.L.D. legal again," Natasha parrots, patience apparently wearing thin. 

Steve shakes his head at the floor. "I knew I should've read the addenda."

" _That's_ news to me," Bucky assures him.

"So what you're telling me," Steve says, turning back to Natasha, "is that S.H.I.E.L.D. -- an organization that was readily infiltrated by HYDRA to the point of almost complete subsumption when it was at its peak -- has somehow been _reinstated_ as an official governmental organization, just because a bunch of diplomats got together and signed _papers_ believing that signatures could possibly begin to imitate actual safeguards."

"Well," Natasha says carefully.

"Under _this_ government," Steve repeats. " _This government_ runs S.H.I.E.L.D."

Natasha purses her lips. Steve stares at her, disbelieving. When she doesn't reply, Steve looks to Sam, who's blinking at him with a grim expression. "This make any kind of sense to you?"

"Hell no," says Sam.

Steve exhales in genuine relief. "Thank you."

"No problem." 

" _Are_ there any actual safeguards?"

"From what I can tell," Sam says, "no there are not."

"Of course there are safeguards," Natasha counters.

"Yeah?" Steve asks. "What are they?"

Natasha stares at him. "I didn't ask for a rundown."

"There's a training base for a _government-run_ so-called 'peacekeeping' organization in your best friend's backyard, and you're telling me you didn't ask _questions_?"

"I assume Clint did," Natasha says acidly. "Everyone makes their own decisions, Steve. Isn't that what you're about?"

"Listen," Steve says, voice run low. "The reason I was fighting the Accords in the first place is so that our power cannot be harnessed by corrupt interests who believe they know better and would use it against our neighbours. S.H.I.E.L.D. has already proven susceptible to that once, and that was _before_ this particular presidential office took power. You wanna have this fight again, fine. But from where I'm standing, this isn't about us anymore."

"I never want to fight with you," Natasha says. "I'm just not sure, in a world ruled by powerful institutions, having one on our side of the fight is necessarily a bad idea."

"Nominally," Steve reminds her. " _Nominally_ on our side of the fight. And I think even that is being generous. It was legitimized by people who would put three of the people in this room in the Raft for the hubris of defending ourselves against Stark, for defending the world against Hydra sleeper agents, for -- fucking _breathing_ if we're being honest, and now it persists in a country disinterested in preserving basic freedoms and civil rights for its population. Ask me again, Natasha, how much trust I should put in it."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Natasha asks, and there's a velvety tone to it that Steve doesn't like. "Are you gonna go to the Homestead and tell Clint to shut it down? Or are you gonna keep playing at 'retirement' and pretend this problem isn't yours?"

Steve blinks, taken aback.

"Hey," Sam interjects. "Tomorrow, Natasha. Not today."

Natasha looks over at Sam, then moves her eyes back to Steve, sighing gently. "The point is," she says slowly, finding some restraint, "that Fury is at Homestead, and there's a lot of activity there. It is what it is, and from what I can tell it seems pretty contained. Clint is on board with Fury's plans, to say the least, and I..."

She trails off, but she doesn't need to finish. Steve knows perfectly well how hard it would be for Natasha to turn her back on them.

Steve forces himself to deflate; takes two steps back until he's leaning beside Bucky, arms crossing over his chest. “Alright," he breathes, forcing himself to calm. "How does Laura feel about all this?"

“Fine,” Natasha says, at the same time that Sam says, “Awful.”

Steve shuts his eyes and hits his head gently against the cabinets. "Let's start with 'fine'."

“Laura would put her foot down if it was something she couldn't handle,” Natasha reasons.

“She didn't get a choice," Sam counters. Natasha's eyes immediately hit the ceiling, making it clear this isn't the first time they've had this argument. "That woman wouldn’t turn away a stray if it was mangled and diseased. She’s worse than you,” he says, nodding at Steve. “Long story short, Fury needs to clear out of there and manage S.H.I.E.L.D. properly without relying on Clint's hospitality, because as it stands it's liability to _all_ their covers. We don't know how secure their cloaking is. Fury’s living in a bubble, he's not getting the hint.”

“And yet he’s giving new agents a place to train where they won't be tracked,” Natasha says. "He's putting them on the right path, regardless of who signs their paycheques. He's giving Wanda people to train with who aren't afraid of her. Colour me biased, but Clint and Fury put _me_ on a straight path. I can't help but feel like they're the best possible screen for an effective new S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative there could be. There's a reason Fury put the base there, and it's not a bad one."

"We need to consider that he planned for this all along when he created that cover in the first place," Steve remarks.

Natasha raises her eyebrows at him. "And people call _me_ paranoid."

"I know who green-lit the helicarrier operation in the first place, Natasha. I trust Fury's motives, but I sure as hell don't trust his methods."

"And his results?" she asks.

Steve stares at her. "Iffy."

Natasha rolls her eyes. Steve checks with Sam to see if he's totally off-base, but the cant of Sam's eyebrows seems to say it all. 

"So did you actually follow up on whatever you went there to check on?" Steve asks. He hitches himself up on the counter next to Bucky, thinking it best to move away from this powder keg of a topic and force something casual into the room. "Or was that all lost to the discovery of S.H.I.E.L.D.?" 

He is being generous. It's clear as day that Natasha's known about S.H.I.E.L.D. for years and just hadn't bothered to tell anyone about it, but if Steve had ever doubted why she'd support the Accords in the first place, he definitely understands it now. What she'd _actually_ gone to find out had been something to do with whatever she and Sam had tracked down in Europe while Steve was working with Bucky on the trigger. It seems Fury had some information that she wanted to glean.

"We followed up," Natasha says shortly. "Fury didn't have any additional intel to share."

"He _said_ he didn't have any additional intel _to share_ ," Sam clarifies.

"He didn't technically lie."

"You're right, but he didn't say he didn't have intel."

“You think every word he says is hidden-agenda,” Natasha mutters.

“That’s because it _is hidden-agenda_. I can't--"

Sam stops abruptly. Natasha looks to the floor with something like humility. Steve feels, not for the first time, that he's suddenly intruding. 

"I can't explain it to you again," Natasha says, quiet, to the counter.

"I know," says Sam, calming. "You superhero types just have a weird complex about what defines righteousness, that's all."

"I never claimed to be a superhero."

"Modest."

"Pedestal."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Later."

Natasha looks up at Steve and gives him a tight smile. He returns it, trying for sympathetic. "The gist of it is that the trail's not hot."

"Apart from the obvious, you mean?" Bucky gravels.

"Well," she says, quiet. "You know what our odds are on that."

It is an unspoken agreement the two of them have, where Bucky knows that Natasha is hunting information on the KGB-FSB where it intersected with Hydra, and where Bucky doesn't ask questions about it, except for vague and occasional ones. Steve doesn't understand whatever agreement they've come to, but from the way Natasha raises her chin when they do talk about it, she seems to know he's trying to keep himself protected. Steve has the impression she thinks he's trying to buy himself time, before his involvement becomes inevitable.

Steve doesn't know how Bucky lives with it. He's itching to know more about Hydra, but knows it's hardly fair to ask what Natasha's digging up when he, Steve, is himself unwilling to contribute to the effort. At least, not until... well. Until he figures out what it means to be "retired."

"I have other leads," Natasha says, trying for reassuring.

"You don't owe me, Romanov." There's a grate to it that suggests discomfort. "Do what you want."

"I owe you a little."

Bucky stares at her. "No you don't."

Natasha stares back; then she mutters something in Russian. Bucky's face collapses in recognition and incredulity.

"That wasn't _advice_ ," he growls, full with conviction.

"I took it as advice," says Natasha. "You changed my life, like it or not."

"Is that -- _that_ \-- the whole reason you're nice to me?"

"Maybe."

"Well, stop it," he bites. "I was indoctrinated."

"You helped me regardless."

"I tried to kill you. _Three times._ Check in."

"Steve forgave you. Can't I?"

Bucky's face presses in indignation and disgust. "Steve's a freak of nature, and the luckiest bastard I've ever met. No one should follow his example on anything."

Steve smiles at his feet in the pause that follows. 

"Well," Natasha says. "I'll keep you posted."

"Do what you want," Bucky repeats; then, apparently just for something to do, he snatches one of the beer bottles off the counter and smashes the cap off between the counter and his prosthetic hand.

There's a stunned silence. Steve aims for casual as he pulls steadily from his beer.

"Didn't that hurt?" asks Sam, following his cue.

"Yup," Bucky says, and promptly downs half the bottle's contents in one.

Sam looks at Steve, brow wrinkling. "You brought him back _on purpose?_ "

"Who else am I going to have bottle-opening competitions with at three in the morning?" Steve deadpans.

This, thank god, seems to break the tension in the room; they all look among themselves, trying to find recourse.

"Are we done fighting now?" Steve asks, when nothing makes itself apparent.

"If I'm out of the hotseat," Natasha says passively, but she doesn't follow up with anything else.

"Okay," Steve says. "Well… I could grace you all with my attempts at cooking."

"No," say Sam, Natasha, and Bucky in unison.

On this, at least, they are united. " _Or_ we could order pizza, I guess?"

So they order pizza, with Bucky and Natasha silently and knowingly splitting one with anchovies while Sam and Steve opt for pepperoni; and for a few careless, joyful hours, there is no discussion of secret missions or societies; no bickering about S.H.I.E.L.D.; and no one trying to kill them, or trying to find them out.

It feels a bit like a miracle.

For a hot second, Steve almost thinks he's stumbled on a life.

  


  


  



	2. Chapter 2

  


Steve still sleeps like the dead. He's not sure what to do about that.

It seems like something that might be helped or solved by finding a new direction in life -- in having somewhere to be, sometimes, now that he's not Captain America. The question of his "retirement" looms large in his mind. He's a man focused inward these days, contenting himself with being around for Bucky and trying not to be discovered -- contenting himself, in other words, with contentment.

Yet he finds himself horrifically restless, left most afternoons to thrum with useless adrenaline. He calls up Sam and sets up a regular morning run, then runs the ten miles each way to meet up with him. But even this doesn't seem to get rid of the hum under his skin. Nothing does. Not running. Not even Bucky. 

The latter comes home from the market one day to find Steve lying on the floor, post-shower and partially dressed, not trying to be dramatic but unable to stop thinking about the itching under his fingernails.

"Get a hobby," Bucky mutters, entwining their fingers together as he lies on the floor beside him.

Steve brings Bucky's hand to his mouth and presses his lips against his thumb. "Think that'll help?"

"Can't hurt."

"Hmm. Any ideas?"

"Let's see. Hmm… you could _draw something_."

Steve grunts his distaste. It's not the first time they've had this conversation, but Bucky's been getting more pointed about it as time goes on. "Pass."

A silence falls. It's not long before Steve figures out he's staring at him. "What?" Steve asks, looking at him.

"Why?" Bucky says, quiet. It's laden with a sincerity Steve can't quite stand.

He rolls his eyes. "Because," he says shortly.

"When's the last time you drew something?"

"I dunno, Bucky, a while ago. What does it matter?"

"It -- worries me."

Steve frowns. "That I don't _draw_?"

"Yeah."

"... _Why?_ "

“Why'd you ever quit?"

Steve shrugs. "It -- it's not like I _quit_."

"But you don't do it, either."

"Well…"

"Not like you forgot how to hold a pen."

"I got good at other things."

"Yeah? Like what, fighting?"

"Since you mention it," Steve says. "Didn't have to rely on the one talent anymore."

"You have other talents, Rogers."

"Yeah, yeah." Steve nudges his foot against Bucky's shin. "If you must know, I did try to pick it up again a year or two ago. It just felt more like…" He shrugs. "Grasping at straws, somehow, I dunno."

Bucky sighs again and stays silent a while. Steve thinks that's the end of it; but then -- "I just think it's a shame," he says. "Letting talent like that go to waste."

"You've said that."

"You're not convinced."

"I dunno if I was ever that talented, Bucky."

"You were," he shoots back. He actually sounds annoyed. "Take a compliment."

"Sorry."

"Get a grip, would you? You wanna know what comes next in your life? Maybe you become that illustrator."

"Not so sure there's such a market for those anymore."

"So you learn graphic design, animation, whatever. Ask me if I give a fuck. Just -- don't give up on this." There's an odd note in it; Steve wonders if whatever emotion lies under all this acrid indignation has somehow overwhelmed him. "I don't want you to give up on -- what you're good at. It's a shame, Steve. It's such a goddamn shame."

"I'm not giving up on anything," Steve says. "It's just not a big part of my life anymore."

"I don't get why. I'm saying you should give it another shot. Hell, even I've been destroying the kitchen most days a week trying to force these hands into doing something creative." Now that Bucky mentions it, it's clear that he has; maybe inspired by their recent and insistent viewing of the Food Network, Bucky's been returning from market with new and different ingredients to help him try his hand at a few different techniques. "What's your excuse?"

"I…" Steve shrugs. "I guess you're right, I should find a hobby. But drawing feels like going backwards."

"Why?" 

"Same way you don't wanna be called James, I guess."

Bucky's face contorts with indignation. He pulls his hand away and Steve lets him go, feels his stomach fall. "I don't want to be called James because that's what fucking Hydra called me, Steve. Pierce, Zola, every asshole in between... it's not my name anymore, it's a control tactic. But you don't want to _draw_ because -- what, you don't want to think about the way we used to be?"

"Oh, god, Bucky, no."

"Look, I'm not fishing for -- I wouldn't actually blame you if that's how you felt, despite what I sound like. But it doesn't make it less of a waste of your talent."

"The last time I spent any amount of time drawing, Bucky, I thought I'd lost you in the 21st century," Steve grinds out. He feels emotion pull him away from control, but it's the only way, sometimes, either one of them manages to be totally honest -- when they let their feelings get the best of them. When they decide to let themselves fight, a little. "Before that, it was when I first burst out of the ice. Before that, I'd landed on the front to discover you wouldn't look at me. The time before was when you left for basic. I draw to -- cope, Bucky, only there's nothing to…" He shakes his head. "Really I've only ever just drawn to preserve the memory of you, and it's usually just because I'm scared to do anything else. Only now you're here, and I'm not sure it's healthy for me to do that anymore, and you can _tell me_ , by the way, about these things that happened to you with Hydra. I don't know half of what happened to you, and I can't read your mind. You don't have to keep biting my head off."

"You flinch whenever I so much as _say_ Hydra, Steve, don't feed me that shit."

"God forbid I _flinch_ a little when you've been to hell and back. I'm trying to tell you I have good reason for not wanting to draw anymore, alright? I hate missing you. I hate trying to remember what I can't have. You're right the hell here. I have you. There's nothing to miss. I won't go back to that."

Tension settles over them, thick, just for a second; then it splits in half, dissipates, to the patter of rain against the window.

"Well, that association's never gonna change unless you actually work to make drawing about something else," Bucky mutters. He taps his fingers gentle against Steve's wrist; intertwines their fingers again. "Make new connections with it. Make it about good things."

It is, at the root of it, oddly good advice. Steve smiles wryly and brings Bucky's hand up to his mouth again -- sets his lips against his knuckles, imparting something like apology. "Sometimes I'm not sure I always remember what used to fuel me, before the war broke out."

"So start with what you know. Start with me." Steve turns to see Bucky looking at him, unusually open. "I'm here, right? Go from there."

Steve smiles, unexpected. Then he looks at the ceiling and takes a steadying breath. "And if I can't do you justice?"

A sound in the back of Bucky's throat: a sudden comprehension. "I don't care about that."

"I do."

"Well, draw me in 1940, then. You remember that."

Steve winces. "I... might've already exercised every possible angle of that era last year."

Bucky fights a quiet smile. "Oh, yeah? That right?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Just can't quit thinking of me, huh, Rogers?"

"You caught me. I'm hopeless."

"Boy." He's more than amused: a little hopeful, somehow. "You keep any of 'em? Wouldn't mind seeing them. Must've gotten better."

It's a pang in him, suddenly; he wishes he had something to show. "No, I... they were all in my apartment in DC. Haven't been there in over a year, probably been ransacked to hell and back by law enforcement by now." 

Bucky blinks. "Oh."

"Guess that doesn't bode well if I ever get -- what's the word?"

"Doxxed?"

"Doxxed. Shows a certain intent to commit a major international treaty violation when I spent three months drawing the accomplice in question over and over."

A strange silence falls. Steve looks over to see, to his surprise, that Bucky is grinning -- a rare thing, these days, but always a delight. 

"Well, it's not like you drew him in compromising positions," Bucky says, voice deep with sarcasm. "Like you used to. _That_ would be embarrassing."

"Yeah," Steve says, suddenly seeing the humour in it. " _That_ would be."

There's a pronounced beat; then Bucky sits up, propping himself on one elbow. "Rogers," he says, looking him dead in the eye.

Steve tries to hold it, but finds that he can't; laughter takes him over. He has to cover his face with his hands.

Bucky seems too stunned to speak, for a second. "Are you saying there's a dozen naked drawings of me in an evidence file somewhere?"

"Bucky," Steve says, voice full with elation from behind his hands. “There are way more than a dozen."

"Holy shit. There really are, aren't there?"

"That’s proof if we ever needed it that I should never draw again."

He chances a glance at Bucky to see him, to Steve's profound relief, still grinning incredulously. "Are you lying?"

"Bucky -- I am sorry to say, I have never been more serious in my life. You've gotta be jerking yourself off in at least three different FBI files."

And Bucky stares at him another second -- a long, incredulous second -- before burying his face in his arm and howling with laughter.

Thank god, too, because Steve thinks he may never have otherwise survived the admission. Tears pique in the corners of his eyes, he's laughing so hard. "Oh, god, Bucky -- Bucky, stop, I can't breathe."

"I can't fucking believe you," Bucky heaves. "I can't _believe_ you."

Steve is overcome. He's not sure the last time he's seen Bucky so carelessly happy. "You're the one who said it was a shame to let talent like that go to waste," he wheezes back.

"You just languished by yourself and thought about my dick for three months?"

"It -- it wasn't like that."

"Oh, no? Then why the hell do the _feds_ have my _dickpics_?"

Any control he'd wrested back is left spiralling into hysteria again. "Bucky, listen, it was -- nostalgia. Regular nostalgia. I drew Brooklyn, I drew Peggy, I drew _you_ \--"

"I rank third after _Brooklyn_ and _Peggy_?" he manages, voice coarse.

"If it makes you feel any better," Steve deadpans, flushed with delight, "I didn't draw _them_ naked."

"Oh, well then!"

"Yeah, after I drew your face a hundred times or so, I got bored. Natural progression to… you know."

"Pornography."

Steve waves a hand. "You know how I am."

"Obsessed with my dick?"

"Well. Yeah."

Bucky's laughter finally begins to wind down, leaving him wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "Oh my god, Rogers. This is the best thing that's happened to me in years."

"Happy... to oblige?"

"You got a real problem, you know that?" 

Steve leans over and kisses him, just because I can. "At least I picked your face first," he tells him fondly.

"Yeah. Feeling real blessed right now." Suddenly Bucky's rolling toward him and throwing a leg over his hips, hands climbing up Steve's shirt. Steve responds ready, easy, hands finding Bucky's thighs. "Thought you were never much fond of my face," he adds, pressing kisses to his jaw.

"I'm not." Yet in spite of all this, he finds he's still trying to get this restlessness out of his skin. He can't tell if Bucky's attentions are a help or a hinder, but it's hard to refuse this; he buries his face in Bucky's hair, trying to find solace. "You've got one ugly mug, Buck, anyone ever tell you that before?"

"You, maybe, about a thousand times."

"Yet you keep parading it about."

"You're the one who keeps drawing it."

"Can't help myself," Steve says, licking his lips; "someone's gotta capture the spectacle." 

Then he leans up and catches Bucky's lips with his, hands moving slow over Bucky's thighs, and Bucky's so hot and responsive and _here_ , and a thousand other fucking things Steve doesn't spend enough time being thankful for.

"You know I want _this_ , right?" Steve mutters, stopping sudden. His fingers brush at Bucky's hair. "What we are, right now. Not what we were."

Bucky nods, thumb scanning gentle along the contour of Steve's face. "Yeah, Rogers. I know." He cocks his head a little. "You really sure it's not worth capturing?"

Steve blinks at him. "Wow. Careful, Buck. Someone might mistake you for someone sentimental."

"You're confusing my narcissism for encouragement," Bucky says. "I want the whole house covered with pictures of me, Rogers. Make it a shrine. I'm _relieved_ the feds have all those drawings. Now they know how hot you think I am."

Steve covers his face. "Oh, I really can't think too hard about that."

"No? Correct me if I'm wrong, here, but you thought about me stroking myself off in front of you _so much_ that you immortalized it in international criminology history for _ever_. And now it's suddenly taboo? I don't think so. They ever find this place, they oughta know about all the nasty shit we did in here. Can you draw the way I fucked you over the kitchen table?"

"Oh my god."

"No? You sure? Can't believe you don't want the feds to know how good you take it for me, Steve."

Bucky's mouth is at Steve's throat as he says it, and Steve is fully torn between want and mortification. Bucky's grinning; his mouth is at Steve's cheek now but it's kinder, suddenly, and Steve feels his shoulders unwind. 

"Okay, but seriously," Bucky says, voice low and sincere. "You're bored because you used to spend hours a day drawing, before you spent hours a day fighting. _Every day_ , Rogers; I was hard pressed to get you to do anything else. Now you've given up the other thing, too? Of course you don't know what to do with yourself. You're single-minded to a fault. You need something to fill that void." Bucky sits up a little; shrugs, tries for reason. "It doesn't have to be the old stuff. You can draw anything. This, or not. It'll be good for you. Unless you _really_ don't want to."

"I... do," Steve admits. "I _think_ about drawing all the time. Way you look some days, I…" He trails off; swallows. "But maybe that's what I'm afraid of, Buck. I don't think I should spend all this time worshipping the ground you walk on. Not again."

"Oh, you're saying you don't do that now?"

"No."

"Are you _sure_? Because you spend a _lot_ of time staring at me. Watching me do literally anything--" 

"Okay."

"--with this look in your eye--"

"Yeah, okay. I hear you."

"-- _kinda like_ you worship the ground I walk on…"

"Is this your ego again?"

"Plain facts, Rogers, sorry to say. That's why I'm telling you: _get a hobby._ "

Steve looks to Bucky as though for confirmation and finds, with a faint sinking feeling, that Bucky appears completely sincere. "Okay, but if that's the case, this doesn't... feel like a good solution to me. I start drawing you instead -- then what? We split up again for whatever reason and I face all over again that you... were always the real subject?" Seriousness sinks in him, again. He swallows against the grind of sudden honesty. "Maybe I've only ever been an artist for you, Buck. Sometimes I really wonder."

Bucky sighs, more sympathetic than frustrated. "So don't fucking draw me, then. Draw your friends; draw strangers, the New York City skyline. Draw whatever you want, just… don't give it up."

Steve sees how serious he is. He works his fingers into his hair; cups his face, appreciative. "Why are you pushing so hard on this?" he asks, handing that sincerity right back.

Bucky sighs, eyes wandering the room, as though looking for somewhere to land. That pesky emotion again. "Because I look at all you've given up," he says, fingers scanning over Steve's ribs, "and I want you to have something that's yours. Just yours." Steve searches his face, palms shifting slow over Bucky's back; then Bucky rolls his eyes, makes a harsh noise in his throat. "Apart from me," he adds, hanging his head.

"Wow," Steve deadpans. "I wasn't even gonna say that."

"I can see in your face you were, you're a terrible liar."

"So you _are_ a narcissist, huh?"

"Just figuring that out now?" Bucky says; and Steve's smiling as he pulls Bucky back down, as he kisses him whole, adrenaline still pounding in him full to bursting.

  


  


  


They fuck on the floor, because life is short, or because "carpetburn is sexy," or so Bucky says. Steve's not so sure about that one, but then again, he is the one enduring the carpetburn.

Bucky traces it with his fingers, afterward, ear against Steve's chest. He doesn't say anything, but Steve has the impression he's treating it like a roadmap, the way they used to pretend their scrapes as kids were maps to faraway islands. He falls asleep, here, breath evening out in what seems like seconds, and Steve doesn't dare disturb him, though he knows little would. 

He manages to reach an arm far enough to grab the remote and the blanket off the sofa -- drapes the blanket over Bucky, turns the Food Network on at a low volume. He must drift off after a while, too, because by the time Bucky grunts himself awake it's already gotten dark.

"Hey," Steve says, voice ground thin by sleep. Bucky's breath is rapid; his fingertips press into Steve's ribs, bracing. "You're okay. You're in our home, I'm right here."

Steve strokes a hand gentle at Bucky's hair until his breathing slows; until his fingers disengage from their near vice-grip in Steve's skin. 

"We still on the floor?" Bucky asks coarsely, after a minute.

"Yeah," Steve says.

Some discomforted shifting. "How long was I out?"

Steve can barely make out the microwave clock where it glares in the kitchen. "Looks like… five hours? Six?"

"Jesus _Christ._ Why didn't you wake me?"

"Figured you needed the rest."

"I don't."

"Last time you slept was over a day ago. Don't think I don't know that."

"I know how to operate on low rest."

"You're only human, Bucky. Everybody needs sleep."

Bucky seems not to know how to respond to that. His hands test at Steve's flank, as though giving a thanks he's not sure how to vocalize. "Well, this is a stupid place to sleep," he mutters.

"Did you sleep well?"

"I -- guess. Head hurts like hell. The usual."

Steve nods. "You were pretty out. TV's been on almost the whole time."

"And you just -- lay here. The whole time."

"Yeah."

"Where I fucked you into the rug."

"I slept too, if that makes it better."

"Of course you did. You'd fall asleep in the middle of a mission given half a chance. Oh, Jesus, stop... caring about me so goddamn hard, I can feel it wafting off you."

"Sorry," Steve says pleasantly.

"No you're not."

"No," he agrees.

Bucky doesn't move. Steve feels his eyes flutter closed against his chest, like he doesn't want to stay awake.

"Does it… help?" he mutters at Bucky's brow. "When I'm around?"

"While I sleep?" Bucky asks.

"Yeah."

There's a pause long enough that Steve actually thinks he might've fallen asleep again, until -- "I guess," he mutters at last.

Steve nods. "You can ask for that, you know."

"I don't -- want to."

"Do you prefer not sleeping?"

"Well, yeah."

Steve frowns. He hadn't expected that. "Well, that's ridiculous. Don't do that."

Something like a smile twitches onto Bucky's face. "I ask you to do something, I'm a little afraid you'll lie down just to let me step on you."

"Oh, god… would you?"

A harsh sound from Bucky's throat. "Be serious."

"I am being serious. You don't ask me for anything. Let me at least give you a good night's rest -- or, afternoon, or whenever works for you. You've gotta sleep, Bucky."

"You give me a lot."

"As you can see I'm terribly burdened."

"You've been lying in a puddle of cum for five hours. There's a man on you."

"Puddle of cum's over there, actually, and the man I don't mind."

"So get minding."

Steve just brushes his fingers through his hair. "You don't seem exactly in a hurry to move. I can only assume you like it here. I can be horizontal and not waste my time. Ina Garten's been very instructive."

"It doesn't exactly bode well that I -- look, I need to find another way."

"Has your other way been working?"

"No, but--"

"Don't say you're trained."

Bucky sighs.

"What works for you about this? I'm asking. You're not bothering me."

Bucky tests his hands against his ribs. "You're -- of a certain size."

Steve laughs, despite himself. "Sure."

"You -- showed up, once. With your stupid shield. In Bucharest. Pulled me… behind it. You had no reason to." He furrows his brow, recriminatory. "I don't get you."

He shuts his eyes with sudden realization. "Gotcha."

"I just… live in fucking trust, god help me." He swallows hard, like he's in physical pain. "I can let down my guard a minute. Sleeping… probably won't kill me. Like this."

"Bucky."

He must catch the tone of Steve's voice, because -- "Please don't. Please be normal about this."

"That is so... _romantic._ "

"'I'm pretty sure I won't die around you' is romantic?"

Warmth blossoms full in him. He fights to bite back a grin and fails miserably.

"That isn't a compliment," Bucky says, raising his head. "You've turned me into an idiot."

"Sure."

"It's not good, stop being happy. I can't sleep _without_ you, now. I'm dependent. It's pathetic. And the bed won't do, either, it's too--"

"Soft?" Steve suggests.

"It's too -- good. We bought too nice a bed."

"Good for sex."

"It's _great_ for sex. You should see yourself in that thing, Rogers. Picture of beauty."

Steve smiles; loves him a minute. "So you prefer the floor. Might be a terrible place for most people to sleep, but maybe not for you."

"I'm not making a habit of sleeping on the floor," Bucky mutters. "Not while I'm a person again."

Steve freezes, briefly. He tries to cover by running his fingers through Bucky's hair again. "So use me as a middle ground until you adjust," he says, tucking his questions away. "You slept in Wakanda."

"I was exhausted then."

"So maybe we exhaust you."

"I wasn't processing much. I don't think that's the right… idea."

Steve frowns. He wonders if he's been talking to Sam, given that kind of language. "I'm running out of ways to convince you to get some sleep, Buck. Look, we won't do it all the time. You try to sleep in a bed now and then, and when you actually need to sleep, tell me you want to step on me. I'll lie right down."

Bucky besets him with deadpan eyes. "You're hilarious."

"You got a better plan? In the spirit of the right idea, I don't think building on an already considerable sleep debt is exactly smart."

Bucky doesn't agree, exactly, but he does stop arguing. "You want up?"

"No," he says.

"Then stay here."

"Fine," Steve says. "You wanna watch something?"

"Ina's fine," says Bucky.

It takes all of five minutes for him to fall asleep again.

  


  


  


Steve has much more difficulty, he finds, keeping still this time. He taps out a rhythm on his fingertips against the carpet; thinks, if he was sitting outside of himself, how he might draw this, had he the tools or the inclination.

To his own surprise, he feels himself winding down. He starts to lose himself in the strokes he might make. Of Bucky's hair, long around his face. Of his shoulders. Of --

Steve hates to admit it. He really, deeply does. 

But it at least seems within the realm of _possibility_ that Bucky may have had a point.

  



	3. Chapter 3

  


Even on his knees and behind the counter, there's no mistaking the sudden opening of the front door.

"Oops," comes a hissing voice. The door hastens shut a second later.

Steve, registering the abrupt softness of the dick in his mouth and the rigidity of Bucky's hand in his hair, stares up at Bucky from where he kneels. Bucky's staring at the door, mouth pressed into a thin line.

There is no mistaking this situation for any other.

"Hmm," says Steve, getting to his feet. He hitches Bucky's sweatpants neatly back onto his hips. "Possible oversight on my part."

Bucky rounds on him, wide-eyed. "You _invited_ her here?"

"Oh -- _her_?"

"You invited _someone else_ here?"

"No, of course not. Would I blow you knowing someone was coming?"

"Unfuckingclear!"

"I gave Sam a spare key."

"You -- _what_?"

"For emergencies! In case we're, I dunno, at the market and get found out and have to go on the run, I'd rather he -- you know -- dispose of any incriminatory--"

"Wilson _agreed_ to that?"

Steve shrugs. "I don't think it's _likely_."

"You give Romanov a key too?"

"No. She must have taken it from Sam's."

"Steve!"

"Obviously I didn't think she'd use it!"

"Apparently, you thought wrong!"

He knows Bucky's going to kill him, but he has to take a second to fight the smile budding on his lips. He doesn't mean to; it's just this thrill in his chest--

Bucky reads him like a book. "Holy _shit_. Did you do this on _purpose_?"

"Of course not."

" _Steve_."

"Now why would I want someone to walk in when I'm not the one topping?"

"Take this seriously!"

"I am! It's not that bad."

"It's pretty fucking bad!"

"I'm pretty sure Natasha knows we have sex."

"That's not the goddamn issue! Oh my god!" Bucky pushes his face away. "This is your problem now, go do damage control."

"Okay," Steve says cheerfully, kissing Bucky on the forehead.

"Don't get cute with me. Get rid of her."

"I'd guess she's here for a reason."

"Do I give a fuck? I'm not in the mood. Bucky's not here." He scowls at Steve and slams the bedroom door behind him as he goes.

Steve gives himself a second to smile to the ceiling before pulling the front door open and rearranging his features into something accusatory. "You forget how to knock?" he says flatly.

She looks up at him, hand flat against her cheek in embarrassment. "I'm really sorry. I didn't think you'd be boning down in the kitchen in broad daylight."

"Why the hell not?"

"I don't know! No one bones down in the kitchen in broad daylight!"

"That key's not for general use. How'd you get it?"

"Took it from Sam's."

"Why?"

"I have to talk to Barnes. Hoped to catch him alone while you slept--"

"It's two in the afternoon."

"Just in time for your afternoon nap."

Steve rolls his eyes. "You figured knocking was, what, just too straightforward?"

"Old habits."

"Can't help but feel like sneaking up on a jumpy ex-assassin wasn't your best plan."

She shrugs a little. There's an odd edge to it Steve can't parse, but he doesn't have the patience to figure this out right now. "Look. Bucky doesn't want to talk right now -- can't imagine why. So why don't you--"

"It's kind of time-sensitive," she cuts in. "He can send me out again after I've said my peace, but I really want him to hear me out."

Steve cocks an eyebrow at her. "That bad, huh?"

"It's not _bad_ , it's just -- in three days."

"What is this? A Hydra mission?"

She purses her lips at him. "What do you think?"

"Natasha."

"He's the only one who speaks the language."

"What, Hydra speak?"

She gives him an incredulous look. "Russian, dumbass."

"Well, too bad. Come back another day."

"No." It's firm enough. "Tell him it's for Hydra. He'll talk to me."

"I don't want to _blackmail him_ into--"

"What do you think I'm gonna do, hand him over to Hydra hierarchy? He's not under their control anymore, Steve, there's no harm in asking for his input."

Steve stares at her. "Can't you at least give me a little more info?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You're not his keeper. I want to talk to Barnes himself."

That, in the end, is hard to argue with. "Fine. Just… make it quick, alright?"

"No problem," she says, tone flooded with faux sweetness.

Steve sweeps her in. "Hey, Buck!" he calls as he shuts the door. 

A reluctant pause, then -- "Yeah?"

"Nat wants to talk to you."

Another beat. "Bucky's not here."

Steve rolls his eyes. "She says it's important, time-sensitive, doesn't want to relay through me. It's… about Hydra. You might want to hear it."

Another long pause. Eventually the bedroom door opens to reveal Bucky, oddly put-together, hair neatly pulled back as though he'd assumed he'd be expected to face people in the end. "Hey," he says. He leans against the wall with crossed arms, not bothering to front with awkwardness. "What's up?"

She gives him a fragile smile. "I need your help."

"Unlikely."

"At least hear me out."

"Here, aren't I?"

"You want Steve here or gone?"

"Here's fine."

"Involves sensitive intel."

"Best he knows."

Natasha nods. "Feel like a mission?"

"Nope," he says at once.

"I need help from someone with a high skill level in Russian."

"Best consult your old spy database, then."

Her mouth quirks to the side. "Just like that, huh?"

"Let me guess. You want me and my left side full of Hydra tech to walk into a Hydra trap and expect to get out intact."

"I wouldn't call it a _trap_."

"But is it potentially a trap?"

She doesn't say anything.

"Then yeah, Romanov," Bucky says. "Just like that."

"You can handle this," she insists.

"No, I can't."

"I think you can."

"Well, you're wrong."

Natasha's eyelids flicker. Steve resists the urge to interfere; watches from the kitchen as they spend a silent second mutually walking back their aggressions.

"I need someone who speaks Russian to pose as a scientist with me at an academic neurobiology conference," Natasha says, when they've calmed. "Conversation. No fighting."

"Sounds like a bullshit summary of a Hydra infiltration mission. Call it what it is."

"Hydra employees still have to hold day jobs," she says, ignoring him. "It's how they secure funding for some of their more legal operations. These are researchers and scholars, actual professors with actual labs. They're invested in maintaining their positions. They probably lead normal lives, except for their Hydra connections."

Bucky scoffs. 

"They're contractors," Natasha finishes. "They're not even in town on Hydra business."

"That you know of," Bucky corrects.

"They want to maintain their reputations, they won't risk a blowout. Not in front of legitimate colleagues."

"Come on, Romanov, you're not that stupid. For one thing, I'm the Winter Soldier. Hydra employees of any level see me--"

"You're a secret," she jumps in, "even to the rest of Hydra. I doubt they'll recognize you."

Bucky frowns his incredulity. "What? Why? Why do you think every level of that organization hasn't been alerted to the escape of their most valuable asset?"

She gives him a generous look. "Don't get cocky."

"I'm not being _cocky_. I know my fucking reputation."

"Just relax."

"Go fuck yourself."

Then they breathe, a while, holding each other's eye. Steve flicks his gaze between them, trying to read the silence.

"Don't forget that I'm an asset, too," Natasha says, carefully. "I'm risking it."

"That makes _you_ stupid. It doesn't make me stupid."

"I want the knowledge they have. I think it'll help me." She gestures to him. "I think it'll help you too."

"Quit condescending."

"Now you're just being contrary for its own sake."

"It's Hydra. You want my complacency? So do they."

"I don't want your complacency. I want your willing participation. I want your _help_."

"Tough shit, Romanov. The hell do you even need in Russian, anyway? Why can't Wilson do it?"

"I want to pose as American-based Russian expats. They need to trust us enough to believe we could be Hydra so they'll divulge the information I want."

"Why in _hell_ do you think that's going to work? I have an accent, for one thing--"

"You don't," Natasha says quietly. "Your vocab is a little textbook, but these days your accent is fine. Seems you spent enough time around people speaking Russian to pick up a pretty convincing regional dialect."

Bucky stares, unnerved. "You're out of it," he grinds out.

"I'm not," she insists. "It'll work, Barnes. It'll _work_ , because we know enough about Hydra to drop hints, to lead the conversation. We each have the skills to run an interrogation without them realizing we're doing it. We have intel on top-secret Hydra projects that no civilian should have. They're contractors, mid-level at best -- high enough for what we want to know but nowhere near high enough to know who we are. We'll make them believe us. We have that skillset."

Bucky shakes his head. "That is _dangerously_ arrogant," he says. "You're telling me you mean for us, the most successful and recognizable results from Hydra's highest-powered projects, to guide a conversation on information _about us_ , while we're standing right in front of them?"

"Best place to hide is in plain sight, right?"

Bucky shakes his head at her, then switches flawlessly into Russian. Steve doesn't catch a word of it, but Natasha smiles at him, serene.

"That's why I need you."

"So I can -- what, destroy them for you when they cotton on?"

"You really do think you're hot shit, don't you? If anyone destroys anything, it's gonna be me."

"Jesus. Pot meet kettle."

"Second of all," she continues, ignoring him, "in the unlikely event they _do_ figure out who we are, I want you there so we can get out of there _together_."

Bucky seems to understand something, then, though what Steve couldn't say. He raises his chin at Natasha and seems to think. "Huh."

"I thought you'd appreciate that."

But then he shakes his head, apparently deciding. "It's arrogant. It's not worth the risk. It's counting on a lot of things being true that aren't obvious."

"I think the benefits outweigh the risks."

"I don't. It doesn't change that I'm more of a risk than an asset to you in that environment."

"I don't think you are. I think you're most recognizable when you're in combat."

Bucky gives a burst of haunting laughter. "Pretty sure I'm most recognizable by the considerable trauma to my body."

"Well, it's not like we'll flaunt it."

Bucky stares at her flatly.

"Look," says Natasha. "I'll say it again. You were a top secret project. The intelligence community at large doesn't know about the Winter Soldier program. Only the topmost agents of Hydra have even a modicum of an idea about who you _are_ \--"

"You're out of time on this. That may have been true before I was framed in Vienna… _before_ I was arrested, before we broke out of the CIA -- but you know as well as I do that they blame me for that." Natasha doesn't even blink, but Steve hadn't known that at all. "Given the US political climate, the rumours that I'm back in the States? I'd bet good money that there's a version of my dossier going around catching Hydra at large up on a lot of these details. And that's _before_ we even account for the fact that you want to present me in front of Hydra _neurobiologists,_ for fuck's sake. Are you kidding?"

"They're not a risk to you."

"They're the _highest_ risk to me. I'd rather face a Hydra top dog than face another fucking scientist."

"You know the last time you had psychic work done. It's been over two decades, I don't think--"

But Bucky's face flashes defensiveness and pain in equal parts. "It doesn't make a fucking difference! I'm a case study, a goddamn triumph in their books! They passed that shit down, you know better. They'll know me."

"They'll know _of_ you. They won't know what you look like."

"Who says? Why the _fuck_ do you think that? You got proof? Huh?"

"Calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down. You have no goddamn reason to think we'll get out of there unscathed. Anyone in there gets how this shit works--" he gestures to his head-- "I'm a palpable risk to _you_ ; I'm a risk to everyone in the _conference_ ; I'm _definitely_ a risk to your mission--"

"I don't think you are. You're just a citizen, Barnes."

"It is beyond insane to me that you think that. You've gone beyond arrogance, Romanov, you're just solidly in denial. Get your head on straight before you even _try_ this mission or you're gonna land yourself in a serious situation."

"Barnes. Think a second. The mechanism's out of your head, isn't it?"

" _So far as we know,_ " he says ferociously. "I don't know about you, but I don't have the full scope of the situation. I didn't even know it was still in there when it was, and throwing myself untested into the lion's den is the exact wrong way to go about finding out."

Natasha holds his eye; breathes a while, tries to bring Barnes down with her. It's smart, something Steve does all the time, and it even kind of works. 

"You can't let fear keep ruling your life," Natasha tells him.

Bucky winces. "Oh, who asked you?"

"Barnes, I'm talking to you about this because I expect that you will someday react the same as I am right now to an opportunity to extract relevant information from Hydra via nonviolent means. I'm asking you for a favour. Aside from having the skills to make this happen, you're the only person who can stand to benefit as much from this mission as I do. It is comparatively low stakes--"

"Lower than solid stealth? No."

"You think showing up in a Hydra-affiliated location stealthed isn't gonna tip someone off more that you're the Winter Soldier than posing credibly as a scholar?"

He shakes his head in disbelief. "You and me come from different worlds. You thinking that--"

"We actually don't. Maybe you should try out trusting me." 

"Go to hell. Don't tell me what I am."

But Natasha only smiles. "I'm willing to bet you want information, same as me. Am I wrong?"

"You're not _wrong_ \--"

"So our motives align. Our skillsets align. It's a match made in heaven."

" _Technically,_ Natalia, it is a match made in hell. It's one that's already been made. Want to remember what happened the last time you and me teamed up?" 

"We unearthed the Winter Soldier program," she says. "Technically."

His eyelids flicker with annoyance. "You know what I'm talking about."

"I do," she admits. "So let's redeem ourselves. Keep working to break our old programs down, so it doesn't happen to anyone else. Right?"

Bucky scoffs his disbelief, but it's compromised by a film of panic barely masked under the surface.

"Serious question, Barnes," Natasha says carefully. "On the day you decide you're going to start working against Hydra -- do you have a plan?"

"No, I don't have a _plan_ , which is why I'm not doing it. I need time, and so did you. How fucking long did you take to get where you are? If your new strategy is guilting me into doing this--"

"It took me years," she admits freely. "And it took getting doxxed to make it happen. But I don't think--"

"So you're forcing me into it on _your_ schedule, just so you can have an ally? So you can shove it in Hydra's face if we do get exposed? No. I'm not doing that, Romanov. Thanks for asking, but go fuck yourself."

Natasha sighs hard. She's not going to let it go that easy. "Look. I do need your help, but this is also an olive branch. You've spent three years avoiding this process since you first broke out of your programming, Barnes, and I get it. I do. God knows I understand more than others how hard that process can be. But during those years when I was figuring myself out, I had no options. I lived in fear. I wasn't as enhanced as you, either, and from what I gather about why you went back into cryo, I think you know what I'm talking about when I say it's time to move forward and out of this fear that you're going to be leashed again."

"I _don't_ know what you're talking about."

"I think you do. Start by helping somebody else. I did. It helped me."

But far from calming, Bucky's reactions crest to the surface. Anxiety flashes full across his face, breaking through all attempts at control. 

Steve starts to feel more than a little concerned. "Natasha," he says softly.

"I don't want to hear from you," Natasha says at once, holding a finger out to him. She doesn't even bother to look at him. "I want to hear from Barnes."

"I respect that, but this isn't the right approach."

"We'll move through the field together," she says to Bucky, ignoring Steve. "I won't abandon you. I won't let them take you back, Barnes, I promise you. Same way you'd never in a million years let them take me."

Bucky's eyes flick up to Natasha's from where they'd set on the floor. Something about this seems to get through, but -- "Arrogance," he says again, clearing his throat against the rasp in it. "They turn me into the Soldier, Romanov, that won't be anywhere close to enough. You know that. _Better than anyone,_ you know promises don't mean shit, and your wilful denial of the facts is telling me exactly how much I should be committing to this mission. Which is zero."

"There's no evidence to suggest they put additional programming in you. You were experimental, they didn't have time for failsafes."

Offense flashes over his features again. "That has _no_ fucking basis in fact. I don't understand why you keep stating predictions like they're true. I _was_ experimental. I was a test doll. You have _no_ scope of what they did to me that they never wrote down, no clue what I used to be capable of."

Through the alarm sounding in his ears, Steve can see that Natasha looks just as rattled. "So fill me in," she says, too casually.

Bucky's stare hardens. " _No._ "

"You're not talking to Steve. You're talking to me. I know this life, Barnes. I've lived it. I've met you."

"Oh, yeah? Twice? Three times? You think that makes you a fucking expert?" Bucky's hands are clenching into and out of fists, and it's all Steve needs to know just how tenuous his control on his anxiety is. "I dunno about you, Natalia, but I still wake up every morning surprised I'm not being handed an assault rifle first thing. For all your puff rhetoric about it having been three years, I don't fucking feel it. The first Hydra agent to call me 'Soldat' is probably gonna my solid compliance right back, and that's a fact."

"It's not a fact."

"Stop pretending like your belief reflects reality!"

"Look. You really think that could happen to you? Let's practice and find out. We'll root it out, you and me."

His face flashes full horror, now. "Are you out of your _mind_?"

"No. I'm not. I think you are, though, and I think it's time to snap out of it. I think that you will never feel safe in your skin until you have practical proof that it's not going to happen. Whether it's with people you trust or in the field--"

"I don't trust you," he says at once.

Natasha's face irons out. Steve can't read her, but Bucky seems to see something in it; lets his face fall to the floor. "Not on this," he says, swallowing against feeling.

"Fine," she says. "I get that. But I'm saying you have to start somewhere."

"And I'm saying this isn't it. Look. Romanov. I'm not gonna say it again. We're arguing in circles. You and Steve can stand there all you want, like the chorus of the redeemed, trying to pull me up to your level by conviction alone. But it does -- not -- change -- reality. They fucked with me to an extent that you can't comprehend. I'm a weapon. I kill. That's what I'm for. I don't do what you do. And I can try all I want, but you think we somehow bust out of there like the the cavalry if I get activated?" He shakes his head. "You're wrong. We get had. I'm theirs, and you're dead. And you're pretending this is some tiny step toward existence, but it's not for me. You're asking me to gear up and hand myself over, and I'm saying _fuck no_. I won't do it. You can find somebody else to be your attack dog, and you can go to hell while you're at it."

Then Bucky retreats into the bedroom and slams the door behind him.

Steve, calmly, waits for Natasha to turn. A few beats pass; then she sighs at him, arms crossed. 

"You want me to talk to him?" Steve says, quiet.

"No," Natasha says. "He's probably right. We don't have enough information. It could be disastrous."

Steve cocks an eyebrow. "What? You _agree_ with him?"

"On a lot of points," she says, "yeah."

"Then what the hell was all that for?" He points angrily toward the bedroom. "Are you just wearing him down for sport?"

"He needs to be pushed," Natasha says gently. "You're not going to do it."

"He pushes himself just fine! All you're doing is forcing him past his limits!"

"You can lay off me, Steve. I got the message. I put him through this because I really did want his help. He's not the only one struggling, you ever think of that?" She stares at him with hard eyes and a thin mouth, and Steve feels more than a little chastened. "I needed help, but you're retired. Sam wants to help, but he can't do what Barnes can do."

"I would help _you_ , Natasha. All you had to do was ask."

She shrugs, seeming embarrassed of herself. "Look, you don't speak Russian either. You're just not gonna be as much help as he is. You're room support at best."

"Okay. Ouch."

"Oh, don't pretend this is about you. Barnes is the best person for this job. I pushed him hard, but he held his ground. It's fine. I get it. He's out. It won't come up again." She raises her hands and starts backing toward the door, and Steve hates to let her go but his gaze has been flitting toward the bedroom as it is. "I'm sorry about barging in. Tell Barnes I'm sorry, too, if he'll hear it. I didn't mean any harm."

"Natasha," Steve says; but she's already pulled the door open and stepped out of it without another glance. 

Steve stares at the door a minute; then, rubbing his forehead, he turns toward the bedroom; pushes open the door. "Buck?" he says, peering inside. 

He's not sure what he expected, but he finds Bucky standing with his head against the wall, hands clenched into fists, knuckles pressing by his temples. 

"Hey," Steve says. "Are you -- okay?"

Slowly, incrementally, Bucky's head pivots until he's made eye contact, one hand falling to his side. "I don't know," he says, fragmented. He swallows hard; shuts his eyes.

Steve nods; shoves his hands in his pockets. "Do you… want to be alone?"

He seems to think about that, but -- "No," he says at last.

Steve nods and steps inside, latching the door closed as silently as possible. He doesn't know why, but he thinks a closed space will help. He waits for Bucky turns to face him, one corner of his forehead still planted against the wall. 

"I don't know what to do," Bucky says.

Steve nods. "Okay."

"She's not wrong. I gotta start somewhere. But…"

"It doesn't have to be here."

"It can't be," he says.

"Then it's settled. She's gone now."

"I just want… peace. I just want to live in _peace_."

"I know you do." 

"I want some fucking rest. There's no -- I can't remember everything they--" 

"I know." 

"And I never will."

Steve nods. Sadness sinks deep into his bones, leaves him floundering.

"So it'll never be safe. And I don't know what to -- I hate this." He pounds a fist against the wall, dents the plaster. "I _hate_ this. She's right, _fuck_ her. But I don't know what to do."

"Hey. C'mon, Buck. Breathe." 

Bucky shakes his head, like he doesn't want to do even that. "I just can't -- why would she _ask_ me?" His voice cracks. "Why would she think this was _smart_? How is it worth the risk?"

"I don't think it's about risk."

"Goddamn right! It couldn't be!"

"You've got the language skills. You have the knowledge. She wanted _you_ , Buck, your thinking, your conscious commitment."

"But it was never mine."

"You sure about that?"

Bucky looks at him, like he's said something terrible. 

"She thought you could do it. That's all I'm saying. _You,_ Bucky. Not him."

"Well, she was wrong."

"Then she was wrong. You told her as much, and now she's gone. That's all there is to it."

Bucky shuts his eyes hard, lets out a ragged breath; raises his head and then lets it fall against the wall, once, twice, three times.

"Hey. Whoa." Steve closes the distance between them; reaches out, snaking fingers around Bucky's wrist. He watches his face for some indication he should back off, but Bucky only looks at him, gaze unreadable.

"I can't do this," he whispers, voice breaking.

"You can," Steve says, though do what he's not sure. "You're good at it by now."

"I'm back where I was. I'm always fucking right back where I--"

"Look at me." Steve lifts his chin with a gentle knuckle. "Think of where you were three years ago. You really think you're in the same place now as you were then?"

Bucky just shuts his eyes and exhales hard.

"You did that. You did all that. That's just you, Bucky, it's all you."

"But I'm not -- the same."

"No one is. That's not on you. Don't let Natasha get under your skin, alright? She doesn't see this, she only sees the put-together Bucky you put on. She doesn't know any better. She really thought you could take it, she didn't know."

Bucky looks around the room, like he's trying to find something to steady him. "I hate this," he says again.

"I know," says Steve.

"I don't -- want to be here. I want to... go."

Steve blinks. "Go... where?"

"Anywhere. Away."

Steve's heart is beating so hard, suddenly. "We can go wherever you want, Bucky," he says, swallowing hard. "Whenever you want. Just say the word, and we'll make it happen. I mean it."

Bucky glares at him, like he's being unkind.

"I think about leaving." Steve hadn't known it was true until he'd said it. "I think about leaving all the time. There's nothing keeping us here. We don't have to be here, not at all."

"Don't indulge me."

"I'm not. I really mean it. We… we really can go, Bucky. If that's what you want. We can really just go."

Bucky searches him with something like focus, now, but Steve doesn't like the concern behind it. "I don't know if it'll _help_ ," he says slowly. "I just want it."

"Okay." Steve shrugs. "I'm saying I'm with you. If you want me."

"I always want you."

Steve smiles. "Okay."

"I just -- have to panic, right now. Stop -- talking about real things."

"Okay."

"Don't take me seriously. I mean it. It's bad for me."

Steve nods, pulling Bucky a little closer, hesitant, hand at his back. "You got it. Mockery it is."

"Don't get smart either."

"Sorry."

"Just -- be here. Can you just--"

And he certainly can. He spreads his fingers wide at the small of his back; lifts his hand into the air, intertwines their fingers. He pulls Bucky into him, swaying gently in the room.

"Ugh," Bucky says, but something in his shoulders buckles, just by the barest inch.

"I get misty," Steve mutters against his temple.

"Stop," Bucky whispers, then buries his face in the crook of his neck.

"The moment you're near…"

And the tension sloughs off him piece by piece, step by step, until Steve's all but holding him up as they shuffle in the room; and Steve gives up on words, then, just hums deep in his throat. After a while, Bucky's breathing evens out, his fingers turning soft against his neck; and Steve holds at him and holds, and fights the buzzing in his skin.

  


  



	4. Chapter 4

  


"--fuck is your _damage_?" 

Bucky's voice, low from the kitchen. He'd felt Bucky pull away a second ago but hadn't quite woken up, and now--

"Okay." Natasha's voice. "Calm down." 

Steve rolls to his feet and casts blearily around for something to wear. He grabs for his sweatpants, looks for a shirt; only comes up short. Based on the array of clothing on the floor, Steve would guess Bucky is out there in his underwear at most. He wastes three seconds in indecision about whether it would be better or worse to bring clothing for Bucky too, but all that time really serves to do is underscore that he still can't find a goddamn shirt. 

"Don't you get this is someone's _home_?" Bucky's voice cracks with an edge of desperation. "What the fuck time is it, anyway?"

Sam, now: "Eight-thirty," said as though obvious. He sounds not in the least sorry for the intrusion.

Steve gives up finding his own shirt and grabs Bucky's racerback tank for himself. He bursts out of the bedroom, still pulling it on, to find Bucky indeed in his underwear, gripping tightly at the handle of the coffee pot.

"Hey," Steve says, trying for casual as he leans against the wall. "What's going on?" 

Natasha, impassive, is watching Bucky out of the corner of her eye. Sam, meanwhile, seems unfortunately to have registered that Steve is wearing Bucky's shirt. "Nothing," Sam says, cocking a silent eyebrow. "Just wanted to ask if you wanted to come to the, uh, thing. Or I did. To the -- conference, as backup. Nat doesn't want us to go in alone, could use the room support."

"Well, you wouldn't be in the room," Natasha clarifies. She pulls her gaze from Bucky's back. "You're too recognizable. You'd just be nearby."

Bucky pours another cup of coffee and throws it unceremoniously down his throat. 

"Sure," Steve sighs, watching him. "I said I'd help. What do you need?"

"Nothing," Natasha says. "It goes according to plan, you're just hanging out -- play a phone game, then go home."

"It goes south, you're just saving both our asses," Sam says. He gives Steve a wan smile, oddly bitter. Steve squints at him, trying to read his face. 

"Have you -- slept?" Steve asks.

"Not per se," Natasha says.

"Why not?" says Steve.

"We," Sam says, waving a hand, "went out."

"And then we were still out," says Natasha.

"And then we got hungry."

"And your place was closer than…"

"Anywhere, actually," Sam says. "Walked six miles just to get here."

"You mean anything _open_ ," Steve says.

"Well, yeah," says Nat.

"So you're _drunk_."

"Speaking for myself," says Sam, gravel in his voice, "I have definitely crossed the line into hungover."

"I feel fine," Natasha says, sipping her coffee.

Steve nods. "So you decided to cap a wild night out with a burglary."

Sam and Natasha exchange a conspiratorial look Steve's not sure he likes. "If breakfast is burglary," Natasha says airily. "Didn't think you'd mind."

" _Why not?_ " 

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," says Sam.

Bucky shoots Steve a glance. " _You_ gave them keys," he gravels.

"I didn't _give them--_ " Steve pinches his nose and lets his shoulders fall. "Okay. Rule number one: no more entering my home unlawfully. And for the love of god, _knock_."

"We did knock," Natasha says brightly.

"And when we didn't answer you took that as, what, an open invitation?"

"I don't know what you're insinuating," Natasha says. "Nor is it technically unlawful when we have a key--"

"Breaking and entering."

"No breaking."

" _Entering_ is still--" Steve sighs. "Okay. Let's address the problem at hand. What's the plan for this conference? Where is it hosted?"

"Chicago," says Sam. "There's no plan, you're just backup. Natasha doesn't want me alone in the field, for some reason."

Natasha peels a piece of toast into narrow strips and piles them onto her plate, avoiding Steve's eye. "I don't really care where you are, as long as you're close enough to be able to enter the field in thirty seconds or so. The problem is that the conference centre is obviously huge. We'll give Sam a tracker--"

"We _will?_ " says Sam.

"But this might be a crawling-through-the-vents situation."

"Joy," Steve says dryly. "Been a while since I've gotten caught in a vent."

Natasha stares at him. "You don't have to do this," she says sharply.

"I want to," Steve says, holding up his hands. "On the condition you let me look out for you as much as Sam."

"I don't need it as much as Sam."

By the counter, Bucky's eyelids flicker. He shoots a dirty look over his shoulder at her, but Natasha only smiles.

"I know you're just saying that because you're not that used to being nervous about an operation," Sam says, meanwhile.

" _Definitely_ not because it's true," says Natasha.

"Well," Sam mutters. "We can't all be superheroes."

They all start when Bucky's fist falls against the counter -- not hard, but enough to disrupt. 

He doesn't move; he doesn't look up. Seconds pass. Eventually he shakes his hair out of his face and pulls open the door to the fridge as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

Sam glances at Steve, then returns to his food. Natasha follows Bucky's movements with her eyes, sympathy sparking in her eyes. 

"Barnes…"

"No," Bucky says. He doesn't look at her.

"I'm just trying to apologize."

This brings Bucky to a shambling stop. Steve can see the the way his knuckles whiten against the milk carton, body shielding the gesture from Sam and Natasha. "You don't have to apologize."

"I'm not trying to--"

"I'm leaving in a minute anyway."

Natasha blinks at his turned back. "Okay."

Silence falls as Bucky pours milk over his cereal, then takes it and his coffee back toward the bedroom. Steve brushes a hand at his flank as he passes; Bucky surprises him by pressing a chaste kiss at his chin. Then he kicks the door closed behind him without so much as a backward glance.

Steve exhales hard. Natasha reaches for another piece of toast and starts tearing it into strips again. Sam grabs at a cereal box and points at another where it sits beyond his reach; Natasha passes it to him without a word.

"Natasha," Steve says softly, after watching them a while. "How big is this thing?"

Natasha shrugs, avoiding his eye. "It's well-established that Hydra's in America; S.H.I.E.L.D. told us that much. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s trying to root out leads, but they're not heavy-hitting enough to get very far up the food chain. If Hydra's in government, and academia is government-funded… probably it won't only be the Russians at this conference who'll be a threat." She sighs and nods toward the bedroom. "Barnes' instincts aren't wrong. There are a lot of unknowns here. We basically don't have the intel we need to make this a smart mission."

Steve picks up on the subtext: if Natasha's nervous enough to doubt her own tactics, there's a lot to be said for the severity of the threat. 

"Are you sure this worth the risk?" Steve asks.

Natasha's gaze snaps to him, sharp. To Steve's surprise, so does Sam's. 

"Whoa." Steve raises his hands. "Okay. Just checking."

"You don't have to help," Natasha repeats.

"I'll help. I'm helping. It's just -- if we need more intel before this becomes a smart mission, it seems like maybe we should _get_ \--"

"What do you think we've been trying to do while you've been convalescing?" Sam says shortly. "Vacation time doesn't come standard to the rest of us."

"I'm not -- _convalescing_."

"Sure."

Steve's brow creases. "I don't want to fight with either of you. I'm on your side."

Sam rolls his eyes and falls silent. Natasha just keeps tearing her bread into strips.

Steve sighs through the tension and pushes off from the wall. "So when do we leave?"

"Tomorrow," Natasha says. Steve pours himself a cup of coffee. "We'll take you to the airport in the afternoon. Just be ready when we get here." She looks up at him as he moves to put the milk away, nose wrinkling. "But -- and this is just a suggestion -- I don't think you should wear Barnes' shirt the whole time. Little tight. Might make you conspicuous."

Steve hangs his head in the open door of the fridge and shuts his eyes. 

"I wasn't gonna say anything," Sam mutters into his cereal.

"I -- couldn't find my shirt," Steve explains.

"You only have the one?" Natasha asks.

"You _broke into my house,_ I figured promptness was of the essence." He shuts the fridge and gestures at the bedroom door. " _He_ wasn't even wearing pants."

"That's expected," says Natasha. "I'm more interested in why you thought this was a solution."

"I'm going back to bed." Steve grabs his coffee by the top of the mug and trudges back toward the bedroom. "Help yourself to whatever, but don't… sleep here, alright? And if you're gonna sleep here anyway, at least shut the door to the study so I know you're there." He gestures to the back room. "Lock up when you leave, or -- crazy idea -- maybe leave the key here...?"

"You really think that would stop her?" Sam asks through a mouthful of cereal.

Steve has to give him that. He sighs and hips his way into the bedroom. 

He finds Bucky lying on the floor, still in his underwear, staring at the ceiling. "They gone?" Bucky asks.

"Not yet." Steve shuts the door quietly. 

Bucky grunts; then, as Steve passes, he frowns, neck craning. "Is that my shirt?"

Steve just puts his coffee down and falls backward onto the bed.

"Why are you wearing my shirt?" Bucky asks.

"It was closest."

"Closest to -- what, your hand?"

"Yeah."

Bucky grunts. "Gotta start planting more interesting shirts."

Together and yet apart, they stare at the ceiling a while. Bucky's thumb brushes comfortingly against Steve's ankle where it dangles off the bed.

"They're mad at me," Steve mutters.

"They'll get over it," says Bucky.

"Don't they get what--"

"No."

"Well, that's--"

"Yeah."

They lay in silence for a while.

"Buck," Steve says.

"Yeah."

"What... is this thing? In Chicago?"

He exhales, slow and steady. "I don't know."

"You think it's a trap."

Bucky doesn't say anything for a long time. "I think… it's Hydra."

"So you think it's a trap."

"Well, yeah. But that doesn't make it… probably a trap."

"You think your instincts are out of whack?"

"My instincts are great. I also think that, if I had different information, it would seem like less of a trap."

"What kind of information?"

"Less information about the lengths Hydra will go to just to stay afloat, for one."

Steve mulls this over for a while. "They -- taught you things."

More silence. Bucky's hand disappears from Steve's ankle. "Yeah," he says darkly.

"To keep Hydra's secrets."

"That doesn't mean all their agents have been taught the same." A shallow sigh. "Romanov's probably right. They're middlemen, scientists."

"But scientists -- can be brutal. In your experience."

He swallows so thickly that Steve can hear it from a bed's height away. "Yeah."

Another pause. Steve prods his toe at Bucky's shoulder until he brushes a thumb at Steve's ankle again.

"You gonna go?" Bucky asks, scanning gentle over tendon.

"Yeah."

Steve can feel the anxiety wafting off Bucky from the floor, and not just because of the tightening of his grip. "I wish you wouldn't."

"I -- think I have to."

"What, because they're mad at you?"

"No."

"They're not mad at you anyway, Steve, they're mad at _me_. Don't let them punish you for--"

"What? What did _you_ do?"

His hand drops away again. "You really asking me that?"

"Oh, come on."

"Don't put yourself in harm's way just to--"

"I'm gonna help them stay out of harm's way. That's a different thing."

"Doesn't seem like it to me."

"Well, I didn't ask you."

Bucky sits up, then. Steve raises his head just enough to see him glaring at him. "Yes you did," Bucky says shortly.

Steve collapses against the bed again, arms splain. "I guess I did."

They're still for a long time. Steve hates it. The room stagnates, rots with tension. Reluctantly, he pulls himself to sitting and tugs at Bucky until he's crawled onto the bed beside him. "Don't be mad at me too." 

"I'm not mad at you," Bucky mutters.

"I did this for a long time before you got here, and a while after that too."

"Doesn't mean I like it."

"You don't have to like it. Tolerate it."

Bucky grunts miserably. "The hell am I supposed to do while you're gone, anyway?"

"Lie on the floor?"

"Yeah, but what else?"

Steve hums. "Could learn to make a proper baguette."

He frowns. "That… might actually keep me busy."

Steve smiles and rakes his fingers through Bucky's hair. "You want me to text when I'm safe?"

"Ugh," Bucky says, muffled. "Give it a _rest_." 

"I'll text when I'm safe."

"You'll coddle, you mean."

"You're the one who doesn't want me to go to an academic conference because it's, quote, 'too dangerous'."

"It _is_ too dangerous!"

"Yes, Ma."

Bucky grabs a pillow and hits him with it. "Shut the fuck up. You go head-to-head with Hydra, I get to say what I want about it."

"Okay."

"And you can _call_ me when you're safe. I want to hear your stupid voice."

"Okay," Steve says, smiling.

"Don't make a thing of it."

Steve hooks his elbow aggressively around Bucky's neck and wrestles him against his chest, laughing throatily. "Wouldn't dream of it," he says.

  


  


  


Steve wakes to find his feet still dangling off the side of the bed and Bucky still there beside him, staring at the ceiling. 

Steve blinks at him. Bucky doesn't blink back. "You been here the whole time?"

"Yep," says Bucky.

"You sleep?"

"What do you think?"

Steve sighs; looks around for a clock. "What time is it?"

"Noonish."

Bucky doesn't even have to move to check. Steve's starting to figure out that Bucky's got an uncanny internal clock. "Sam and Nat gone yet?"

"Asleep in the study."

Steve groans and throws an arm over his eyes. "I didn't make that as a serious suggestion."

"You wouldn't have said it if you hadn't thought they might do it. Better there than the living room."

"Are you sure one of them's _not_?" The study, ineptly named, is in fact more of a gym than anything. A sparse bookshelf, a raggedy loveseat, a few mats and a heavy bag hanging from the ceiling are the only things they've managed to find to fill the room. "What, is Sam sleeping on a mat?"

Bucky turns his head just enough to shoot Steve a dubious glare. "You know they're fucking, right?"

Steve blinks at him. "What?"

Bucky just rolls his eyes and stares back at the ceiling. Steve props himself onto an elbow, staring disbelievingly. "Sam and _Natasha_?"

"Yeah."

"... _What?_ "

"You got a certain situational awareness problem in some contexts, you know that?"

"On a _regular basis_?"

"Definitely since we got back to the States. Probably before that." Bucky frowns at the ceiling. "How long were they in Europe together?"

"I -- are you _sure_?"

"You've noticed their fighting."

"I mean, _yeah_ , but--"

"It's always about intimate shit no one else knows about. They're always together, trying to keep each other safe..." Bucky gestures loosely between himself and Steve, as though to draw a parallel. "Think they care about each other and everything. That must _infuriate_ Romanov."

"And you _knew_ about this?"

"Pheromones spike in the room every time either one of them talks about doing anything dangerous, it's not hard to pick up on. Bet they're curled up on that loveseat all cutesy together. Been in close quarters a while; probably have a system for getting comfortable in tight spaces. Bet it's fucking pathetic."

Steve throws himself back on the bed and tries to process this. "Huh."

"You jealous, Rogers?"

Steve frowns. " _No._ "

"I just know how you get."

"I'm not jealous. I don't get any _way_."

Bucky smirks. Steve rolls to his feet in indignation and finds, incredibly, his own shirt kicked halfway under the bed. "You did this on purpose," he says, brandishing it at Bucky before peeling off Bucky's racerback.

"Uh-huh," Bucky says.

Steve nudges Bucky's knee with his own, torn between affection and annoyance. "Kitchen. You want anything?"

"Nah."

"Sure?"

"Ate this morning."

Steve looks at where the bowl of cereal sits untouched on the desk in the corner. "Hmm."

"Oh, leave me alone."

"Get the impression you're having a day."

"Then leave me to it already."

Steve steps out of the room and braves the kitchen. The door to the study is in fact closed, but apart from that there's little evidence Sam and Nat had been here at all -- the kitchen might even be cleaner than it was when they got here. Steve feels a pang of affection in his heart as he opens the fridge and finds order there, too; a note stuck to the milk carton thoughtfully informs him it's low.

There's nothing in here that he wants. It doesn't seem like Bucky's gonna be up to making much. Steve decides to get takeout -- to help Sam's inevitable hangover, if nothing else. 

He goes back into the bedroom to change. "Gonna buy a proper breakfast for the delinquents," Steve tells Bucky, still splain on the bed. "You want me to pick up anything? Ibuprofin? Bourbon? More potato chips?"

"No."

"Want anything for breakfast?"

"No thanks."

Steve forcefully de-wrinkles a pair of jeans rescued from the floor. "You gonna be happy with waffles if I get them for you?"

Bucky doesn't immediately answer that. "Bacon grease," he says slowly.

"Alright. Be more specific?"

"Potatoes cooked in bacon grease."

"That's it?"

"Onions in with the potatoes. Garlic. They'll know at that place on the corner of whatever and… whatever."

Steve knows where he means. "Okay."

Bucky must hear the doubt in his voice. "Trust me. It's all I ate in London."

"And you're still alive?"

"I gained forty pounds."

"Of... muscle."

"Serum."

Steve whistles.

Bucky gestures at him. "One to talk."

"Anything else? Milkshake?"

Another pause. "Chocolate peanut butter."

Steve grins at him. Bucky throws a pillow at him. It hits him in the face without Bucky looking. "You want anything bread-related?" Steve says, letting it. "For your… baguette adventures?"

Another long pause. "No," Bucky says, a little strange.

"Okay." He grabs his phone from the nightstand. "You change your mind, text me."

"God, you just _love_ to talk about texting."

"You gonna be mean all day just because I'm going on a mission?"

"You're buying food for everyone in this apartment just to indulge your various guilts. You don't get to talk."

Steve nods and pats him on the knee. "Enjoy the ceiling."

Bucky just nudges him toward the door with his foot.

  


  


  


Fifteen minutes later, Bucky texts him a long list of ingredients unseparated by anything so pedestrian as grammar or greeting.

Steve smiles at his phone and cheerfully picks up every last one.

  


  


  


A short while later, Steve walks back in the door to a projectile being thrown at his head.

Steve ducks. He stands up. He frowns at Bucky, who is heaving furious breaths at him from across the kitchen.

" _Fuck_ bread," Bucky bites.

Steve nods and puts the food down on the counter. "Okay," he says, looking at the bread on the floor. "Fuck bread."

"Fuck it."

"I'm with you. Down with bread."

"It's _finicky._ "

"What's this one's crime?" He regards the dough now flowering impressively against the linoleum.

"Yeasty."

"That would be the yeast."

Bucky points at him. "Take this seriously."

"Oh I am, believe me. How can you tell it's yeasty before it's even made?"

"It doesn't take a genius, Rogers. Don't question me."

Steve hums. Bucky seems genuinely agitated. "Sure this is worth it?"

This is apparently the wrong thing to say. Bucky cocks an eyebrow at him; advances sidelong, crablike. "I beg your fucking pardon?"

Steve can't help his shambling grin. He hides it behind a hand, but too late.

"Is this worth it?" Bucky reaches over and picks up a loaf of french bread that he must have prepared sometime last night. "I don't know, Steve, you tell me." He steps forward; breaks the loaf in half. "Is that worth it? Huh? Smell that." He waves it in Steve's face. "Look at that. How beautiful is that, huh? How happy are you right now? Here." He turns back into the kitchen; brandishes a knife, takes off a slice of bread. "It's still warm, you piece of shit. This is whipped garlic butter, that I made, specifically for this bread that you apparently think may not be 'worth it'. Eat this."

Steve can tell by the look on Bucky's face that he's reading him like a book -- seeing exactly the level of fondness on Steve's face as he approaches with his bread of scorn. Still, Bucky forces vitriol, even as he puts the narrow bite of bread into Steve's mouth.

Steve can't quit smiling. It is very good. "You made that?" he grinds, after he swallows.

"I made that." Bucky brushes a thumb at his lip, maybe doing away with some waylaid crumb.

"It's pretty good."

Bucky frowns at him, offended. "Are you -- _crying?_ "

Steve just takes his face between his hands and kisses him, soft, between flickering grins.

"It's not that good," Bucky mutters, but he's been taken into it now; keeps stroking the hairs at the back of Steve's neck.

"Well, now I have garlic breath, for one thing."

"Yeah, you do."

Steve kisses him deep, as though to share his misfortune. He crowds Bucky against the cabinets. "I throw things at you," Bucky mutters at his lips. "I shout at you when you get home, and this is how you repay me."

"My whole life," Steve says.

"Jesus Christ."

"My whole life I've been waiting for you to throw bread at my face."

"I make you delicious food and what you like is the violence."

Steve's beyond reason. He just wraps his arms around him, rubs his nose behind his ear; takes in the smell of Bucky in amidst the smell of yeast and bread.

"Stop it," Bucky mutters. "Go love someone else this much."

"No."

Bucky curls his hands against Steve's back and at least accepts the comfort he's given.

The door to the study opens. They break quickly apart, Bucky spinning toward his bread, Steve toward the food on the counter. Natasha smiles at him, looking a little tired but well put-together; Sam, on the other hand, seems to be actively holding up his head with his hand.

Steve holds up the bag of takeout. "Hangover food."

"Oh thank God," Sam mutters, grabbing the bag out of his hand.

"Potatoes are mine," Bucky grunts to the counter.

"Barnes," Natasha says. "Nice to see you clothed."

Bucky cheerfully flips her the bird, then shoves a cutting board in her direction. "Bread."

"No kidding."

"I made it."

Natasha cocks her head at him while Steve takes over from Sam's doomed attempt to unpack the food with his eyes closed. She steps forward; takes a slice of bread, eats it carefully. "It's good," she says.

"No shit." Bucky pulls the cutting board back without looking at her. Steve watches the whole exchange with benign interest; hangs on the way Natasha keeps her eyes on him after he's returned to his dough.

"Nat," Steve calls gently. Bucky turns just enough to see Steve shaking his head at her; huffs to himself, doesn't say anything. "Leave him to it." 

Bucky keeps his back turned and his head down while the three of them eat, leaving Steve to watch his shoulders as he pecks at the potatoes Steve brought.

  


  


  


"I don't hold it against him," Nat mutters to Steve when she and Sam finally step out to go. "Tell him, would you?"

"He knows," Steve says. "Best we can do is just push forward."

  


  


  


Bucky stays silent well into night. 

If Steve finds it eerie, he doesn't have a thing to say about it. Two french breads later and Bucky joins him in the living room, curled up on the floor in front of him while Steve reads. Steve runs his fingers through Bucky's hair, makes his arm available for Bucky to curl against, and neither one of them says a word. The hours press on. 

Eventually, slithering out from under Steve's grip, Bucky rolls to his feet and grabs his phone from the front table.

Steve watches him, book propped at his knees. Bucky sits down just out of Steve's reach; scrolls through his contacts as he curls up on the floor.

Steve can only barely hear Natasha's voice on the other end of the line. "Hello?"

"I have terms," Bucky says.

A pause. "Okay," says Natasha.

"I need... your help. Tactics; blending. Run me through the mission, again and again. I know Hydra's basics, not yours."

"Okay."

"You have to be willing to help me keep my head. We need a system. Steve's not enough."

"Okay."

Bucky nods, teeth clenching. "Come by tomorrow and we'll… talk."

"Okay," Natasha says.

Then he hangs up the phone and tosses it across the floor.

Steve watches him in wordless silence until Bucky gets up and sits on the floor in front of him again. He pulls Steve's arm across his chest and sighs. "You want to watch something?"

"Sure," Steve says, bewildered.

Bucky nods and hands him the remote and doesn't speak again.

  


  


  


When Bucky rolls a leg over him and kisses him hard, shaking and terrified, an hour or so later, Steve meets him where he is. He lets him shake apart until he stops; gives him something that feels good until his silence is broken with sighs and sticking groans. He makes him feel, gives him something better, until his fingers grip against the sheets and he knows that Steve loves him.

The, face buried in the crook of Steve's neck, Bucky actually finds a few hours' sleep.

Steve, for the first time in what feels like months, barely sleeps a wink all night.

  


  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the changing tags! No themes the series hasn't previously dealt with but best to be safe.

  


Unable to stand any more staring at the ceiling, Steve puts on his running clothes, runs ten miles with Sam, then finishes the rest of a marathon by noon.

Natasha, predictably, is standing in the kitchen when Steve gets back. 

He's about to read her the riot act before entering without permission, but she smiles at him shortly and turns her attention back to the closed bathroom door. "You're gonna have to show me eventually."

Bucky's voice, a little muffled: "Cool it, Romanov."

"If I'd known you were gonna be this vain I never would've asked you."

Steve can practically hear his dawning look of incredulity. "Give me a break, would you? This so-called 'hair product' -- what does that even mean? It's godawful."

"Do you need a hand?"

"I can take care of my own damn hair."

"I'm just saying, I'm well versed in the art of the impeccable hair bun."

Steve's eyebrows shoot up as he fills a glass of water from the tap. _Bun?_ he mouths.

"Just wait 'til you see what he's wearing," she says.

Abruptly, something clatters in the bathroom sink. "Is that Steve?"

Steve swallows his water too fast. "Yeah."

"Ugh."

Steve frowns. "You know I live here, right?"

"I'd hoped--" He sighs. "I guess you'd have seen me eventually."

"It can't be that bad."

" _Bad_ isn't the concern."

"Should I leave you two alone?" asks Natasha.

"No," Bucky says. "Please. Let's just get this over with."

"Let's see it, then."

The bathroom door opens and Bucky slouches out, his mouth pressed narrow with overt apprehension.

"Wow, Barnes," Natasha says approvingly.

 _Wow_ is the right word.

If not for the fact that he still glowers from behind his square-frame glasses, Bucky would pass easily as an up-and-coming scholar to anyone so introduced to him. Beard trimmed more neatly than usual, Steve sees the pout in his lips that had so plagued him with positive attention in the '30s. The exchange of his usual comfortable clothes for business casual has brought a crispness back to him that Steve's no longer accustomed to. He wears some crisp shirt in a complimentary slate colour -- it's unbuttoned just enough to exude a certain degree of sex appeal, but not so much as to break the vibe of semi-professionalism he is aiming for.

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest. Steve's eyes drag along the line of his hips, where his shirt is tucked taut into his pants. His blazer could have been tailored to him; its sleeves are rolled up to the mid-forearm, giving him the impression of a somewhat relaxed college professor half his students would surely fall in love with.

Steve forces his mouth closed when Bucky slants his eyes bitterly in his direction. "Sorry," Steve says. His voice sounds weird. 

Bucky blinks to Natasha. "How am I gonna explain this, exactly?" He holds his prosthetic arm in the air.

"We'll put it in a sling." Natasha turns to Steve, as though expecting his objection. "I made him famous in the field of cybernetic research if he winds up in a pinch, relax. He's a neurobiologist trying to harness phantom limb sensations in prosthetic applications. If he's discovered, he can just brush it off as self-experimentation."

"Oh," Steve says pointedly. "Is that all?"

"Borrowed a bunch of T'Challa's research and published a few papers in his name. It'll check out."

"Will it?"

Natasha waves a dismissive hand, as though overt intellectual property theft is nothing to worry about. "By the time anyone tracks it somewhere else, the mission will be long over. You can't scowl like that," she says, directed at Bucky. "It'll undermine the whole look."

"Obviously," Bucky says dryly. "I was affable once."

Steve, still too stunned to quite regulate his reactions, snorts softly.

"Okay," Bucky continues, annoyed. "I was _arrogant_ once. I remember how."

"You're not still arrogant?" Natasha says mildly.

Bucky gestures at himself. "I'm capable of humility, clearly."

"Okay. Let's see what you got, Barnes. Introduce me to Dr. Bukharov."

Dread pulses in the room. Bucky slants his gaze over to Steve again, his jaw clenching as though in pre-emptive apology. Then he looks down at his feet; shifts his weight from one side to the other, and looks up with a hand at his hip and a curve at his lips.

"Yeah, I mean, my area of study is in the feasibility of artificial neural networks as a potential treatment option for intrusive thought processes beyond a subject's control." There's an element of swagger in his stance and a rasp in his voice, the kind he'd always used when trying to seduce the person he was talking to into accepting his point of view. This is the closest thing Steve's seen to the Bucky he'd grown up with in years, in _years_ ; there's a hint of a Brooklyn drawl in every word as though to seal the comparison. "A lot of people shy away from terms like 'rule-based programming', but there's a lot formal logic might be able to teach us about how to disrupt maladaptive processes and increase output functionality in people coping with catastrophic loss and trauma."

Then he seems to run out of things to say. He gives a slight smile, but Steve can see the shake in it. It falls quick enough, his mouth reverting to its usual thin line. But Natasha nods, impressed. "You think you can keep that up?"

Bucky, having retreated back into humility, lets his eyes flit around the room. "I don't have the technical lingo down."

"That's fine. You will."

"Russian version's catastrophic."

"We'll work on it. Don't sweat it, okay? You got this."

Bucky gives a shaking sigh. "Fortunately it turns out it's not that hard to remember how to be an asshole."

"You were never an asshole," Steve says automatically.

Bucky tugs at his sleeves instead of looking at him. "Maybe not to you."

Natasha glances at her phone, almost like a reflex. Her nerves seem to affect Bucky more. "Listen," she says. "You look good, you sound good. Keep practicing a bunch of that information until it all flows off your tongue the way that did. I gotta run a couple errands -- get Sam included on the security roster -- but I'll come back for you and we'll keep at it en route." She glances at Steve sidelong, then away again, blinking with something unsaid. "There anything you need before we go?"

"New brain," Bucky mutters.

"Need that one. Anything else?"

Bucky shakes his head and nods her out the door.

"I'll be back." She runs a hand over the surface of the counter on her way. "Students would love you, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I mean it. Next cover, think about forging yourself a PhD. You'd be good at it."

The door swings open and latches shut behind her.

Bucky looks up to Steve, his eyes full of something Steve can't quite read. Steve looks at him right back, maybe looking the same way. 

"Hey," he says shakily.

"Hi," Bucky says.

"How you feeling?"

Bucky shrugs. He goes to run his fingers through his hair out of instinct; comes away wincing, rolling product over in his hand. "Could be worse."

Steve nods. An awkward silence falls. Bucky's eyes flit to him, a little shy. "You don't have to come, now," he says, "if you don't want."

"Is that what you want?" Steve asks.

"No."

"Then I'll come."

Bucky nods. He gestures to himself, looking unhappy. "I'd rather not be -- this. But I have to play a role if I'm gonna get through this thing without freaking out."

"I'm not upset, Bucky."

"I don't like it any better than you do."

"That's not the problem."

"I'm not -- him." It's a phrase usually reserved for when Bucky's talking about the Winter Soldier, now used to talk about who he was before the war, and -- it's a persona. Steve gets that. The person Bucky used to be died a long time ago, so far as Bucky's concerned. 

It's just that they've never talked about it. Steve doesn't know how to start now. 

"Does it -- bother you?" he asks quietly. His hand taps nervously on the counter before he thinks to stop. "Using his voice?"

Bucky chews on his cheek; looks askance. "No," he gravels. "But I think it... bothers you."

"Not at all." He holds out an arm. "C'mere." 

Bucky lets himself be taken in. Steve buries a hand in his hair and holds him close. "You smell like hell," Bucky mutters, wrapping his arms around him.

Steve smiles; breathes him in. "Are you... wearing cologne?"

"Shut up."

Steve's smile broadens. Bucky feels it; pushes him away. "Christ. Go take a shower."

"You done with the bathroom?"

"Yeah." He nods a little longer than seems natural, but Steve steps away until his chin turns up. "You, um..." 

Steve stops; turns slowly back, waits for Bucky to string his words together. 

"You'd love me no matter who I was," he says at last. 

It might sound like a statement, but Steve hears the question in it. He starts to nod, but then he changes his mind. "Kinda," Steve says with a flickering smile. "I used to pass a lot of judgment on people, Buck. Including you. Thing is, in your case, it all came back solid." He shrugs, easy, and peels off his shirt. "I'm not who I used to be either, but I'm not all that different. I still judge people pretty harshly. And you still check out so far as I'm concerned, pal, so maybe you're not all that different either."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "You're not exactly scanning for reads on the damned."

"I needled at people so hard because I was looking for their worst quality, Buck. I might look for different things now, but so far as I can tell, your biggest flaw is and was that you're incapable of cutting yourself a break."

"I was horrible!"

"You didn't scratch the horrible surface." Steve turns the shower on to the hottest setting just so the room steams dramatically around him. "I looked up to you. I still do, by the way. Even if I made all those awful choices to get us here, I did them because I wanted to be more like--" He gestures at him. "The person who taught me most about compassion in this world."

"Maybe you read me wrong."

"That right? Is that what you believe? Is that what got you through the last three years, trying to recover the goodness in you?"

Bucky stares. Steve nods curtly and lets his pants fall to his ankles. "You've got my belief in you. You've got my devotion. I don't mind if you need to hear it, but I'm not gonna pretend I don't know you believe me when I say it. You're good with me, Bucky. If you're so dead set on believing you're garbage you better find someone else to tell you, because I just don't see it. I never have. You're just good in my eyes, then as now. Ask me again if you want me to repeat myself."

Bucky doesn't say anything. Steve sees in the rise and fall of his chest that he believes him. 

"Now if you don't mind," Steve says, pointing at the shower.

"I want them to burn," Bucky says suddenly. His voice is deep, each word slowly enunciated.

Steve tilts his head and nods. "I never once thought you fought my bullies for sport, Buck."

Bucky stares. Steve steps slowly, dramatically into the shower; then he pulls the curtain closed, watching Bucky's face around the hem of it until it's all the way closed.

"You're an idiot," Bucky calls.

Steve laughs, throaty and joyful. "Not so different," he calls back over the water.

Bucky doesn't say anything after that. Steve thinks he must've retreated to the bedroom, but when he steps out of the shower again he finds Bucky leaning against the counter with rolled-up sleeves.

His blazer's resting over a chair, shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. The fake set of glasses rests on the counter. 

"Uh… hi," Steve says, grinning helplessly.

"Hi," says Bucky.

Steve recognizes this, the square in him -- the gravelling register of his voice. "Boy, you're taking this character bit the whole way, huh?"

"Gotta commit."

"Guess so."

Drying off has become annoyingly complex with Bucky watching him like that. Bucky sinks his teeth into his lip as he watches him and Steve feels his cheeks, among other things, fill with blood. "Can I help you?"

"You're already helping me." Bucky struts forward and Steve thrills with it, hopeless. Bucky slides a hand over his hip and guides him to the wall. "You're beautiful. I tell you that lately?" 

Bucky takes the towel from him and throws it aside; takes Steve's thickening dick into his hand. Steve shudders a little. He licks his lips; pulls Bucky in by the front of his shirt. 

There's a moment of tension, mounting and marvelous, where nothing happens -- then Bucky's kissing him, angry with passion, and Steve's humming with it where he's pinned against the wall. In the old days it used to be defiance that'd fuel him like this. Steve wonders what he's testing out; what kind of parameters he's trying to figure out how to set. 

"Bucky," Steve says, but the thought gets lost; Bucky's hand feels too good, his thumb stroking sure.

"Let me," he mutters -- a request, more than anything. 

Steve nods. "Yeah. I -- I _just_ showered, is the thing."

"You too good for two showers, Rogers?"

"Just worried on time. Natasha…"

But he forgets his train of thought. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, of the slack of his face, slanted close beside Bucky's -- of Bucky, still clothed, shoulders moving with every stroke of his hand. "Oh," Steve says, turning lightheaded instantly. He shuts his eyes, caves; gives in to that curling heat.

It's gentle touch and confident strokes, yet without much friction it's a tease more than anything. The lube's in the other room and Steve doesn't care to let go. He pulls his fingers against the strands of Bucky's hair that are too short to have been pulled back and sets his open mouth against his neck.

"This is all you get," Bucky says. It's a rasp in his ear. "Come in my hand. Don't ruin my outfit."

Steve breaks off a laugh; catches his own eye in the mirror again, feels that arousal pull at him. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Can you do that?"

"Easy."

Bucky's left hand moves, strokes a teasing finger at his balls, and Steve's breath hitches. His fingers tense at Bucky's neck; smooth out again, until Bucky cups, holds them in his palm. 

"Watch me," Bucky says, only what he means is for Steve to watch himself. Bucky knows about the mirror. He knows the way Steve's vision goes to double when he watches Bucky's mouth press hot against his skin. It's as though he was a third party, watching himself be slowly, steadily ruined by the world's softest touch. 

Steve wants badly to bury his fingers at his head, to hold Bucky still, to trap him in this the way he's trapping Steve, but he knows Bucky'd hate for him to fuck up his hair. Bucky's palm brushes and wraps over the head of him, testing at foreskin but never pulling wholly back, and Steve is left glowering at himself in the mirror, lust flashing darkly over his eyes, compounding sensation with those embers building in him that leave him canting into Bucky's hand in next to no time.

Steve pulls him closer; wants to feel more of his heat. He sinks his mouth against Bucky's collarbone and watches himself, flushing, over Bucky's shoulder. He moans a little, turns his face away, but Bucky tightens his grip, collects his precome. "Look at yourself," Bucky growls, and Steve does -- hands fisting in the fabric of Bucky's shirt, Steve is met with his own slack expression. He's left watching his own lips, bitten and spit-slick, as Bucky winds him down. He sees the tension drawing on his face when Bucky pushes his hips harshly against the wall and Steve moans a little, mouths at Bucky's neck again; mutters his name, once, then again.

Steve feels the smile flicker on Bucky's face, far from the aggression he's trying to pretend. He picks up his intention at just the same time. Steve's eyes roll closed until he forces them open; his hips want to move, but Bucky won't let them. Steve stills himself, Bucky's cupping his balls, testing with gentle squeezes that fall into rhythm with the hand at his dick. It's so subtle and yet so much; Bucky's name falls off his lips again and again, and Steve's left watching his shoulders rise with coiling tension as the orgasm builds, slow, relentless, steady.

"Buck," he sees himself mouth. He sighs hard; curls his hand at Bucky's neck. "Oh -- Bucky, _Bucky_ \--"

Bucky's smiling again and Steve's breathing, just breathing, heavy on the exhale, he's coming undone. It's been just a tease but he's already here and Bucky flicks his wrist just so and Steve's gone, coming hot. Bucky's catching every wet pulse into his hand and Steve's shoulders roll, he watches it happen: watches it all turn out of him, watches tension grow taut and then leave him shaking. That adds to it in the end; with parting pressure of Bucky's palm, Steve feels his dick jolt again, final, as he collapses on Bucky's shoulder.

Bucky's still smiling. Steve loves that; he laughs. "You're so goddamned easy," Bucky grinds in his ear, and Steve hums, low in his throat, hands resting at Bucky's hips to keep him there.

He's drifting off. Bucky knows he is. "Hey." Bucky smacks lightly at his thigh. "No falling asleep. You have to stay awake _all day,_ Rogers."

"I'm not gonna fall asleep during the mission." He mouths his way along Bucky's neck as though finding his way to waking, but when his hands move to unclasp Bucky's belt, Bucky just moves one gently away.

"Not interested," he murmurs.

Steve pulls back, blinking. "Yeah?"

"Just wanted something -- you know. A good memory to get into later if I need to calm myself down." He's lost his bravado; he smiles, shy and worried. "Figure you saying my name all breathy tends to do it."

Steve cocks his head at him, then takes Bucky's face with both hands and kisses him, soft. "More fodder," he mutters.

Bucky nods thoughtfully, then presses his hand covered in spunk over Steve's abs and rubs it steadily, provocatively in. 

Steve just looks down and watches him do it. "Thank you," he deadpans.

Bucky's still fighting a smile when he turns to the sink to wash his hands. "Aren't you showered yet? Chop chop, Rogers, we haven't got all day."

Steve sighs. "But I just _did_ the shower thing."

"Wow. You do need a nap."

"Oh, you're one to talk."

"I slept great," he says, as though four hours' sleep is some kind of achievement. 

Steve turns and twists on the shower, then sighs at the water stream. Bucky pushes him with a foot at his shin. "Quit being so dramatic!"

"Blasted with ecstasy! Oh, woe is me--"

"You're such a fucking asshole. Quote Hamlet at Romanov when she gets here and see how far it gets you."

Steve just turns to him and kisses him hard, then steps laughingly away before Bucky can smack him again.

  


  


  


The flight to Chicago is tense. 

Natasha appears to have chartered a private jet. No one asks how. No one seemed to remember Bucky's fear of flying, either. Steve watches his hands unclench from the armrests upon takeoff, only for them to fold into idle fists as he mutters phrases in Russian, again and again. 

He looks to Natasha and says one with a note of inquiry, taking the inflection she offers and forcing it in. Steve watches, trying to offer acknowledgement as comfort, but Bucky shakes his head and just looks away. He straightens his back and puts a curve to his mouth, but the transformation isn't successful. He's too nervous, eyes darting, shoulders riding on his neck every time the plane hits turbulence. 

At a certain point he pulls a plastic knife out of his pocket and starts fiddling with it in his hands. He takes off his glasses once out of nervousness, but winces and puts them on again. "Did I have to be _so_ blind?" he mutters to Natasha.

She shrugs, barely disturbed from her files in cyrillic. "They fit your face."

Bucky doesn't have an argument for that. His eyes widen as he lets them adjust.

Sam frowns at him. "Are you -- _adjusting_ to that prescription?"

Bucky nods. He slouches in his chair, reaching back for reference from the annals of his mind. Despite being terrified, he almost looks arrogant. Steve's gotta give him props for that. "You know Steve used to be colourblind?"

Sam looks to him in disbelief. Steve shrugs. "Turns out blue's a whole thing."

"You telling me the serum lets you adjust _away_ from the ideal, too?" Sam asks.

"But this is ideal," Bucky says. "I can see perfectly with these things. They get knocked off, I'll lose far-sight for maybe twenty seconds. Worth avoiding the risk of recognition."

Sam sits forward in his seat, as though keen to make Bucky understand his point of view. "That doesn't make any fucking sense," he says slowly.

"He got cones put in his eyes." He points at Steve. "He grew literal bone density, Wilson. It doesn't have to make sense."

"I liked you better when you talked less," says Sam.

"Well, with any luck we'll get the right info. That or we'll die." Bucky shrugs. "Either way, neither one of us will have to deal with this anymore."

Sam turns to Steve. "He used to get this flippant?"

Steve smiles. Natasha sighs harshly; reaches into a bag and slams a bunch of earpieces onto the table, as though reminding them to stay on point. "Take these," she says shortly. "Big ones are for Sam and Steve. I didn't want Sam to look weird if he has to communicate with us during the mission, so it's better if his is obvious. They also only have a certain range, which I did on purpose. If Sam starts to fade, Steve will need to reposition. Ah -- take the other one," she says, picking up the one that's left.

Steve takes it, slowly, then fits it in his ear. "Does it matter?"

"Sam's transmits. Yours only receives."

He frowns, affronted. Steve turns to Bucky, but Bucky stays focused on balancing his own tiny transceiver on his finger.

"Ah." Steve leans back in his chair and tries to keep his stomach from falling. So they orchestrated this. Would've been nice if they'd told him. "Alright. So what'll I hear if you need me?"

"One of us calling for backup," Natasha says dryly. "Or our untimely demise."

"Come on."

"We'll call for backup," she repeats, waving a hand. "If we're not literally saying the word 'backup,' though, Steve, I don't want to see you in the field. I mean it. Blowing our cover would be significantly more costly than letting us try to deal with any ambient violence ourselves, so: don't. _Really_ \-- don't."

"Ambient violence, huh?"

"Hy-dra," Bucky says slowly, as though it should be obvious.

"I'm here as a safeguard for the worst case scenario only," Steve says.

"Pretty much," says Natasha.

"Guess I can deal with that."

Sam and Bucky both snort their disbelief at the same time. Then they frown at each other, as though offended to have found so flagrant a similarity. 

Natasha just looks between the three of them, tense and serious. "Sam and Barnes have already been briefed. You ready?"

Steve nods and leans forward on his knees. "Let's hear it."

"Here are our targets." She tosses two pages in Steve's direction. "Alexei Fodorov works in the field of behavioral conditioning. He has a few papers out, all of them pretty sinister. He deals more with the physical realities of the human body. His theory is that you break the body to the point of helplessness, the mind will follow. Free from any artificial information, apparently you can tell someone what to do just by getting them to a point where they feel too helpless to do anything else." 

Steve glances over to Bucky but sees him just looking at his feet, neither overly tense nor remotely relaxed, while the plastic knife turns with impossible grace between his fingers. "Katerina Volkov has a less menacing reputation," Natasha continues, "partially because she works more in psychology than on the biological side of the equation. Read between the lines of her research and you can see why Hydra took an interest. More than with Fodorov, I think she's a legitimate scholar that does contract work for the money or reputation boost. She talks about the role of memory in balancing temptation and self-control -- how things change in the brain when we remember, how we're more likely to give into a temptation we're familiar with." Natasha taps a finger on her picture. "Volkov's our main in. We'll be keeping an eye on Fodorov; he and Volkov are well known to be close associates. My theory is that he's her handler, but the reason we're targeting them here in the first place is because he's less likely to think an interrogation of her research methods is suspicious. If we can separate them -- keep him distracted to keep her talking -- all the better."

"What are you trying to get out of her, exactly?"

"Confirmation of our theories. We want to know what Hydra's operations are, if any. We don't even know what programs they're running. If it wasn't for the state of governance on both sides of the Atlantic, we wouldn't have reason to suspect Hydra was still operating with anything like proficiency. But if they're taking this kind of a heavy hand to cultivate support for themselves, it's clear they at least have future intentions."

"We want to know what they're planning," Bucky says heavily. "Also what they've already done." 

"It's sort of a nebulous mission in that respect, but any information is good information," Natasha adds.

Steve nods. "So what are the main risks? What happens if Fodorov catches on that you're interrogating them?"

Natasha exchanges a look with Bucky. "That's not clear," she says delicately. "Realistically speaking, there's not much he can do without drawing immense attention to himself, which goes against the explicit mandate of his position with Hydra."

"Hydra does not care about collateral damage," Bucky says choppily.

"Hydra is currently in a state of recluse," Natasha replies.

"Hydra--"

"Do you really want to argue with me right now?" Natasha says, and if Bucky rolls his eyes he also takes the hint. "Fodorov is a Soviet holdover," Natasha continues. "Among other things, this makes him incredibly disdainful of American culture. I'm hoping this will give us an advantage. It's reasonable to think any aggression he enacts will be against Volkov, not us. He may try to get her out of the conference setting, for example, if he perceives a threat. Depending on Volkov's level of cooperation with him, this might give us an opportunity. Sam might be able to throw him out if he gets erratic, which would give us a sympathetic in with Volkov. In that position we'd probably identify ourselves as at least potential members of Hydra, which might get some information out of Volkov about Fodorov's role with them if nothing else."

"Isn't that putting Sam in a position of more critical risk?" asks Steve. "Making him handle the more dangerous party on his own."

"In that scenario, Sam is definitely in more immediate danger than any of us," Natasha agrees. "That's why you're here."

"I am armed," Sam says flatly.

"And nothing says low-profile like tasing a Hydra agent in the middle of an academic conference," Natasha says. "Your earpiece will give you input if Sam's too far away, so it's up to you to keep close to him. But even if the situation escalates, we won't require intervention unless they escalate in significant and unforeseeable ways."

"Hydraaaa," Bucky says again, just to make a point.

"Which is possible," she says through her teeth, "which, again, is why you're here. But stay out of the way until then." Steve's forced to dismiss the pang of envy in his gut. "The best way for us to all get out of this thing intact is with the buddy system. You stick with Sam and I'll stick with Barnes. We don't let them get killed and we should get through this. Capiche?"

"Okay," Steve says, nodding curtly.

Natasha looks between Bucky and Sam. "Okay?" she says to them.

"Okay," they chorus back.

There's nothing to say; they're left sitting with each other in stagnant discomfort.

Bucky snaps the plastic knife hard against the table.

The plane descends into Chicago.

  


  


  


The HVAC vents, thank god, are reasonably big. Steve will not get stuck. He also has several exciting positions to choose from as he lies helplessly, anxious, left listening to Bucky and Natasha work the crowd.

Air conditioning would've saved Steve's ass in the '30s, but right now he's pretty convinced it was a bad idea. Cold air flies right up his pantlegs. Now that he's up here, he doesn't have the flexibility to tuck them into his boots.

"C'mon, Sam," he mutters through chattering teeth. Sam's been giving him status updates, but since Bucky and Natasha switched to Russian, he's been oddly quiet. Steve could hear a brief note of hesitancy in Bucky's voice before he really leaned into whatever accent he's decided to have, so maybe Sam's trying not to ruin his concentration.

The Russians laugh. Natasha laughs. Bucky, after a second, also laughs. "Anyway," Bucky says, voice made tinny by the poor connection. "It's been awhile since I've used so much conversational Russian."

Fodorov replies in Russian. After a beat, so does Bucky.

There goes that deflection.

"Made contact," Sam mutters.

Steve rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Sam." The air conditioning turns on again. Steve, restless, shivers. He takes out his phone and tries to do Sudoku; reads the news a bit, then collapses his arm against his chest. 

Bucky's Russian sounds perfectly proficient to Steve's ears, except for the occasional awkward beat before a word he's unsure of. Steve shuts his eyes and decides just to listen.

"New York," he says suddenly, with a perfect Brooklyn lilt. The air conditioning turns off. "Range interference," chirps the device in his ear. Steve elbows his way through the vents a while. "Range clear," says the device. Steve rolls onto his back again. He plays a level of Candy Crush Saga. He listens fondly to the cadence of Bucky's voice. "Range interference," chirps the device. He moves through the vents.

After an hour, Steve's elbows start to hurt just following Sam around the centre. Bucky slips out of Russian, mostly to swear shakily in Natasha's direction. 

"You're doing fine," she tells him calmly.

"If I threaten idle violence," Bucky mutters, "am I gonna get kicked out of here?"

"Almost definitely," says Sam.

Bucky makes a noise in his throat. "Well, you're not fucking helping."

Natasha, of all things, switches to German. That, Steve can understand. "They seemed convinced of our legitimacy," she mutters.

"Careful," Bucky says nervously, also in German.

"Oh, good," Sam mutters. "Another language I don't speak."

"Just be sure they buy that you work for Hydra," Natasha says, ignoring him. "Drop some hints, stop selling the academic side. Nice touch about not having been home in a while, though--"

"I don't _want_ them to think I work for Hydra."

"The mission wants you to," she says flatly.

"The mission is a blockhead."

Steve snorts.

"We'll mingle," Natasha says, ignoring him. "Only speak Russian if prompted, or if you need me there. Alright?"

"Alright," says Bucky.

"Range interference," says the earpiece.

Steve elbows through the vents again.

  


  


  


The mission ends with a bit of a whimper. After an intensive half-hour of separate conversations -- Natasha with Volkov, Bucky with Fodorov -- Natasha excuses herself from dinner and takes a shaking breath. "Rendezvous in ten minutes," she mutters in English. Steve, surprised by it, scrambles to find a convenient point of exit. 

When he's last to the cafe, the others turn to him as though worried he might've been captured. Something must've happened but Steve can't place what. It's weird to see everyone so intact after a mission and yet Natasha looks too serious, Bucky tending pale. 

"What happened?" Steve mutters, brushing a greeting hand at Bucky's back. 

Natasha nods them out the door. They all leave as a single body, clustered together, barely slithering out the door. "We'll debrief on the plane," she says, and she wasn't kidding. The whole way to the airport, no one says a word. Sam and Natasha communicate silently, in pointed expressions with the occasional nod; Bucky looks to Steve and nods to say he's alright, but then looks out the window and chews on a fingernail.

The plane's where they left it. Natasha takes out her phone, runs an app to check for bugs. Then, once cleared, she sits primly in a chair.

Bucky starts swearing in an impressive combination of languages.

"You catch any of those conversations?" Sam asks Steve.

"Barely anything. Occasional numbers. I really thought I was more fluent than that."

"It was regional," Bucky grinds. He throws himself into the chair next to Natasha and drags his fingers through his hair. "Mine was, anyway. Claimed he 'recognized my accent.' Crock of shit."

"Told you you're fluent," Natasha says.

"Guess the fuck so."

"Heard a lot of talk about a program," Sam says stiltedly. Steve raises an eyebrow. He hadn't known he'd been picking up the language. "That mean you got the information you wanted?"

Bucky and Natasha suddenly have nothing to say. Sitting side by side, they just stare straight ahead, neither one of them doing a thing. 

Then, as though forcing herself back to life, Natasha turns her head to Sam and Steve. "It would seem the Red Room program is still very much alive," she says quietly.

Bucky's anxiety visibly picks up just as she says it. He pulls down the windowshade, puts on his seatbelt. "Can we go?" he says nervously.

Sam goes to pound on the cabin door. "Hey man, we're good to go here."

"Just waiting for the all-clear from the comm tower," comes a voice.

Bucky swallows hard, foot tapping a mile a minute. He gestures to the cockpit. "We trust this guy?"

Natasha exchanges a glance with Sam. "He's S.H.I.E.L.D.," she says quickly, eyes flitting away.

There's a tense pause. "Oh!" Bucky finally says, leaning toward her. "Good! You mean S.H.I.E.L.D., a.k.a. Hydra? Solid plan!"

"I mean new S.H.I.E.L.D., run by my trusted friends. Two of the people in this cabin are far closer to Hydra than S.H.I.E.L.D. is."

"That's what we thought last time," says Steve.

Natasha turns to him, eyes flashing. "You want to do a different job? You organize it next time. See how easy it is without resources, then get back to me on my choices."

Steve blinks at her. He's never seen Natasha lose her temper before.

Sam makes a calming gesture with his hand. "We're all gonna cool the hell down," he says, voice low, "right now."

"Don't de-escalate me," Bucky bites. "You cool down. I'm gonna go right ahead and panic."

"You think I like this?" Sam says. "Trying to figure out how to take down an oppressive regime headquartered halfway around the world and way bigger than us? I do not. It feels impossible. I don't even like how this mission went. But we did what we set out to do, and we're gonna lose our minds if we don't count the successes among the failures." He looks between them, hands on his hips, and Steve's filled with warmth to look at him. "Nothing's different in the world from when we began, except that now we have more information than we did. We are _more_ prepared than we used to be. It doesn't feel too good right now, but we are better off. Account for that in your assessment of what just went down."

Bucky slouches in his seat, opening the windowshade and then closing it again. Natasha takes her hair out of its tie and runs her fingers through it a few times. Steve watches the tension molt in her shoulders -- grow tighter, then filter out. "Alright," she says, and spins to her feet. She toes off her heels, one at a time, and starts pacing in front of Sam. 

Then she looks at Bucky. "You wanna come to my hair appointment tomorrow?"

Bucky blinks at her. Of all things, a small smile blossoms on his face. "What, you need someone to hold your hand?"

"I need a new look," she says shortly. "And so do you."

He sighs, resigned. "You heard that, huh?"

"Heard what?" says Steve.

"He knew -- he _thought_ we were Hydra." Bucky rotates his prosthetic arm in the air. "It was a success in that respect. Our covers were solid."

"Less so now," Natasha says, but Bucky shakes his head.

"No, I don't think so. If they were in Chicago for a Hydra-related reason, it stands to reason that we were, too. Depending on their operations, it also stands to reason that they'd never see us at headquarters, and also that we were likely to have been registered with the conference under a different name than the one we use with Hydra." He looks at Natasha. "I really think we're fine."

His sudden calm seems to inspire hers. Steve sees vulnerability flash on Natasha's face, just for a second, before she blinks it away again. "Even though--" She gestures at his arm.

"Even then." His eyes roll over to Sam, then to Steve. "He suggested that Hydra -- _our organization,_ as he put it -- had the tech to address my arm injury. He was testing me, but I'm reasonably sure I covered effectively." As he says it, his eyes flicker with doubt. His gaze flits back to Natasha. "I'll change it," he decides, "but I want Steve to do it. He used to buzz my hair all the time, he knows how. I wanna keep my head down." His voice gets quieter as the sentence goes on, gaze ticking absently away, before he looks up at her again. "Romanov -- cancel your appointment and come over. Steve'll do me, I'll do you. Promise I'll do you up right, I used to -- have sisters. Or if I fuck it up, you can go back to your precious barber."

"Hairdresser," she corrects, smiling slightly.

"Or Steve can buzz it, you'd rock that. Just--" They breathe at each other a minute, oddly tense, and then he mutters something in Russian Steve doesn't catch.

Natasha nods, slight, slow. "Okay," she says, and repeats the phrase back at him. She offers a lilting smile. "Shade?"

"Black," he says flatly.

"Fine." Then to Steve's utter shock, they clasp hands for a second across the empty seat. "You did good, Barnes."

"Yeah." He laughs emptily as he leans back -- a sound born of relief. " _Real_ glad I didn't get us killed." He laughs again and the tension breaks; suddenly Sam lets out a breath, as though he'd been holding it the whole mission. 

He cocks an eyebrow at Steve, then sits down as the plane jolts into motion. "You good?" Sam asks him, leaning back hard. "We were worried a minute."

"Yeah," Steve says, and cracks a shy smile. He throws himself down next to him, clapping his shoulder. "I was just trying to make sure everyone was clear from the field. All I got when you left was that--" he pulls the transmitter out of his pocket and throws it on the table-- "'range interference' message. If you reported you were clear, you were too far out for me to hear it."

"Oh, shit, man," says Sam. "Sorry."

"Figured once I got there we'd see plain who was missing anyway." He looks between them, the atmosphere in the room thick with the fixings of tension and relief: all of them checking in with each other, making sure the other's intact. 

For a mission that seems simple on paper and went off without a hitch, they're all laden with heavy caution. Although, Steve reasons, the last time they went on a mission together Sam wound up imprisoned underwater and they all got themselves labeled international fugitives. "Listen," Steve says, "is someone willing to fill me in here? Not to put too fine a point on it but you all seemed pretty keen to keep me out of the communication loop on this. Wouldn't mind knowing why."

"It's not intentional," Natasha tells him. She sounds calm, but tired. "You're just--"

"Not in the mission," Steve finishes for her.

She nods, honest yet unapologetic. "This mission was always about unearthing knowledge on the extent of Hydra's programs. I can tell you what the Red Room was like in the '90s; Barnes can tell you what the Winter Soldier program was like until last year. But apart from that we're both out of date. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s out of date; everyone I've talked to has been out of date. Someone has to go in and start amassing intel if we want to begin fighting any institutional resurgence of Hydra. Now we know some things for sure." 

Bucky's peering out the window as the plane taxis, hand in a vice grip on the armrest. "Always knew they were thick in Russian government and it was pretty clear they were in U.S. government, too," he mutters. It ends on a note that suggests he had more to say, but it seems he can't seem to quite get his mouth to move.

"The Winter Soldier program is still alive," Natasha says shortly, taking over. "Worse -- or, maybe ominously -- it sounds like Hydra's combined it with the Red Room program. From what I could discern, we're looking at a new set of professional assassins conditioned with methods we no longer have enough information on to predict. They're infused with serums applied with varying degrees of success; many agents have to be terminated in the field due to--" She waves a hand and shuts her eyes, like she's trying to find the right words.

"Systemic malfunctions," Bucky provides. He licks his lips furiously, jaw squaring. "They come back wrong, like the ones in Siberia."

"Except for the ones they get right. Those people are more likely to get an altered serum, meant for those--" Natasha gestures at herself -- "who operate on a different basis than brute force assassins."

"Sleeper agents," Bucky gravels thickly. "Think Wanda Maximoff, but with artificial conditioning."

Steve leans forward. "Mutants?"

"Powers are definitely possible, given what we know about mutant experimentation still ongoing in 2015," Natasha says.

"I'd call it likely," Bucky adds absently. "People already off the grid are easier to disappear."

"When we were in Europe," Natasha goes on, "we turned up a couple of fringe cases where the suspect of a crime of mass violence somehow survived long enough to be apprehended. In at least two cases, the suspects were confused. It looked like they were made to think they had regular upbringings, lived different lives than they did." She purses her lips. "Like I was." 

"But the flaws in that conditioning are the same as the flaws with mine," Bucky says. "They can be overridden." He shrugs and rolls his eyes, but Steve can see the dread pulsing in him; sees the way he keeps swallowing, as though fighting against rising bile. "Far from finding it a flaw in their methods, Hydra has learned to use this to their advantage."

"They use keywords to make a sleeper agent forget her alleged upbringing -- make her confused, enough to end any resistance to suggestion -- and then they use a few more words to encourage the actions they want to see."

"Usually mass destruction," Bucky adds.

"And then they kill her," Natasha finishes, "except when they don't. So the victims are very hard to track."

"But now we know."

Steve blinks between them, heart pounding, resisting hard the urge to take Bucky's hand. "Know they're still training?" Steve asks, voice worn thin.

Bucky looks at him, then away. It's Natasha who manages to hold his eye a little longer. "Know they're actively training in the United States," she tells.

"It's our lucky day, Steve," Bucky says, joyless. "Sounds like Hydra's main base of U.S. operations is in the Big fucking Apple."

  



	6. Chapter 6

  


Steve shuts the door and turns on a light and Bucky's shedding his blazer, one awkward sleeve at a time. It's as though there's something in his shoulders that doesn't quite work. Steve watches him struggle, unsure whether to help. 

When he finally throws it off his posture drops hard, his head lilting to the side. Just for a minute, Steve swears he doesn't breathe.

He pulls a slow intake of breath. "Steve."

"Here."

With Steve's hand testing hesitant at his waist, Bucky turns to him like a flower to the sun.

Steve takes him in easy, and Bucky's hands rise to clench high against his back. "You did real good, Buck," Steve finds himself muttering, lips against his neck. He feels his chest fill with something warm and restrictive -- pride, maybe; love with a twist.

Bucky's beyond reply. He's let something in that's taking him over, and Steve slumps against the counter and takes it off him. His shoulders quake in building cadence and Steve puts an arm at his back, his lips at his brow; says nothing at all while Bucky clings to him like he's the last shred of ground on a flooding plain.

They stand there for ten minutes, fifteen; twenty, or more. Then Bucky presses his face against Steve's neck and swallows against it, sound sticking in his throat. "Thought of you, you dumb bastard," he mutters, hoarse. "Kept me grounded even though you weren't there."

Steve shuts his eyes and lets the smile tug at him. "Well, I wasn't far."

"Yeah, you never are, are you?" Bucky keeps his face hidden as he pulls away; slides the elastic out of his hair, slouches toward the bathroom. "Gotta get the Hydra off me. You coming?"

Steve blinks after him a second, then trips unexpectedly over his own legs. He kicks the shake out of them, shedding his shirt to the floor. "You just want me to constantly shower."

"Something, glistening, blah blah. Lurid remark."

"Yeah, I filled it in myself."

"I'll bet you did." Bucky turns on the cold water at the sink and throws handfuls of water over his face, again and again, as though cleansing himself of something. Then he looks in the mirror -- stares himself down, a vein frantic in his temple -- for a little longer than Steve wishes he would. 

"So it's war," he says to himself. Then he peels off his shirt and flexes his left side in the mirror, as though trying to force himself to remember exactly where he came from. 

Steve watches in silence as Bucky turns on the shower, steps out of his pants; rips the shower curtain aside so hard it tears. "You coming or not?"

"I'm coming," Steve says, but he stands apart another minute.

  


  


  


Bucky gets as far as rinsing the shampoo from his hair before he hunches hard against the wall and lets water glance off him in roping rivulets.

Steve lets the heat of it burn off whatever it is that's followed him home, then he stoops for the conditioner and tugs Bucky to standing. 

"Another minute," Steve tells him softly, gathering his hair into his hands.

  


  


  


Bucky's asleep within seconds of lying down.

  


  


  


By the next morning Bucky's retreated into silence again. Steve doesn't mind. He bustles, tidying. Bucky sits on the barstool and looks pensively at the ceiling while Steve cleans the fridge.

"Thanks," Bucky says suddenly.

"What for?"

"All of it."

Steve just smiles and plates him a sandwich.

Bucky comes back to life when Natasha comes by. He ties up the topmost strands of Natasha's hair, then asks her to do the same with his. "We'll match," he gravels thinly, bobby pins in his mouth. "Hope that doesn't come off too weird."

"What could be weird about us matching?" she deadpans.

"Nothing screams 'cover' like identical haircuts."

"Guess we'll avoid being seen together in public."

They don't talk much except in muttered one-word phrases. Steve takes the hint; he keeps his distance. He buzzes them both in silence, electing to ignore the jolt of Bucky's gut every time he catches his own locks drifting to the ground. 

Bucky keeps his eyes closed the whole time Nat's dyeing it. Steve imagines it's easier to let go of one's identity that way. But after it's all rinsed and done, Natasha fluffs out his hair with a towel, and -- it doesn't look that different at all. It's darker, a little thinner, and when tied back it'd be enough of a difference to ward off comparison. But it still hangs around his jaw, allows him a curtain if he needs it. 

She ties it back in one fashion, then another. Bucky's breathing picks up, but he's at least interested; analyzes himself with a lilting smile. Then they switch places. The change in hair colour is much more dramatic with Natasha, her eyebrows a striking russet compared with the black. 

"Should I dye your eyebrows?" Bucky asks wincingly.

"Please don't. Makeup does wonders."

Then -- Bucky squeezing a hand at her shoulder as they hold each other's eye in the mirror -- Natasha gets up and goes without another word.

"Bye, Steve," she says, and smiles at him just a second longer than she normally would.

Steve looks back at his sketchbook with a smile. "Thanks," he says, and pencils it down.

Bucky comes back into the room and sits on the floor.

"You wanna watch Bake-Off?" Steve mutters.

"Sure," Bucky says, but he doesn't actually move until Steve's finished drawing him.

  


  


  


A couple days of laziness -- of trying to recalibrate, in a world where Hydra is 40 miles down the road -- and Bucky's stayed silent, oscillating between stillness and panic in turns. Steve, for the most part, has left him to it; has just been there when Bucky's fallen asleep against his leg on the couch, brought to it by exhaustion or avoidance.

"Do you want to leave the country?" Steve says once, only for Bucky to shake his head. "Do you want to go into the city for a day?" he asks, but Bucky doesn't want that either. The only things he offers freely come out of nowhere: "Hydra was in Moscow and I spent four months there," and another time, "Natasha was right about resources." 

Steve nods and lets each comment lie. Bucky doesn't say them to get a response. Steve can see plain as day that whatever is happening in Bucky's head doesn't admit to ready articulation, and that these comments are what he can share. Steve takes what he can get.

  


  


  


Steve fills up a sketchbook in three days.

"Jesus," Bucky says once, leafing through it impressively. He cocks an eyebrow at Steve. "You antsy or what?"

"I'm fine," Steve says. Then his eyes drag on the line of Bucky's dark hair against his face, and he goes out to buy another one.

  


  


  


Steve blinks awake in the early morning to find Sam staring at him with intense concern.

He can't make sense of it. They're in the living room. Steve's got a hand at Bucky's back where Bucky's still draped over him, one hand bunched at his chest, the other tucked around the side of the couch. One of Steve's knees braces against Bucky's side, preventing him from falling off the edge. A blanket hangs loosely over them. Bucky must have gotten up for it and settled back down at some point without Steve even stirring.

In the distance, Steve hears the turntable still spinning. 

"Hi," Steve gravels. The sound barely clears him, his voice hoarse with sleep. "What's going on?"

Sam blinks at him. "Nothing," he says. His voice sounds a little strange. "You didn't show up for our run. I got concerned."

"Oh, Sam. I'm sorry. I set an alarm, but it's in the other room. I didn't mean to fall asleep out here."

"Clearly." Sam assesses the situation, hands on his hips. "Is that… comfortable?"

Actually, it is. Steve looks down to drag his fingers through Bucky's hair where it's come loose from its elastic. He loses himself in it; forgets he's supposed to be answering a question.

Sam reaches out, annoyed. "Hey."

Before Steve can even react, Bucky's hand flies out and grabs Sam's fingers in a deathgrip.

"What do you want with me," Bucky growls automatically, hair strewn in front of his face. He's looking at Sam with the sort of unholy stare that would stop anyone in their tracks, but Steve can see it's not quite focused; he's not quite awake.

"Hey," Steve says. "It's just Sam, it's me and Sam. We're in our living room, you're fine."

It's a long few seconds of motionlessness before Bucky finally lets go of Sam's hand. "Sorry," he mutters. "Don't touch me when I'm asleep."

"I wasn't touching you," Sam says, but doesn't quite manage to sound annoyed.

"Then don't fucking touch _Steve_ while I'm asleep." Then Bucky resumes the exact position he was in before Sam interrupted and appears to go immediately re-enter a state of slumber.

Sam closes his eyes for a second, as though realizing only now he doesn't have the patience for this. "Okay. Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go for _my_ run and pick up some breakfast. Then I'm gonna bring it back here for you two human disasters in about an hour, and you--" he points at Steve -- "are gonna be awake and out from under _that_ \--" he points at Bucky, who is still pretending at sleeping -- "when I get back. Deal?"

"You don't have to do that," Steve tells him, a little flat.

"I know, but I'm gonna. We got a mission to talk about."

"A _mission_?" Steve finally manages to shift into something more like sitting. "I don't think we're up for a mission, Sam."

"It's for Scott Lang. We owe him, for helping you with the Barnes situation." 

"Sam."

He just turns to go. "Nat's meeting us here in an hour, so if you don't want her to tease y'all for whatever this is, you might want to think about getting up sooner rather than later."

Then the door closes behind him without another sound.

"Don't handle me," Bucky mutters at once.

"I wasn't handling you." Steve relaxes into the sofa again and works his fingers back into his hair.

"I'd have figured it out eventually."

"I know, but Sam doesn't."

"He does. What's up with you?"

"He called you 'that'. I'm not sure he's earned much credit."

Bucky sighs. "He matches my level of shit so I don't have to work to communicate. I was uncomfortable he was here, so he made me annoyed so I'd forget about it. He's taking over the workload of Captain fucking America so you can help your degenerate boyfriend keep his shit together."

"Don't call yourself that," Steve mutters.

"I'm saying Wilson makes room. He's never done anything but help us out. Whatever issue you're having, cut him a break."

"He's mad at me for no good reason," Steve grouses.

"That's what you've decided? Let's recap how insane you are when you have feelings for someone." Bucky points dramatically at himself.

"I'm not _insane._ "

"So you _know_ he has feelings for you."

Steve waits too long before answering. "That's -- what?" He scoffs. "No."

Bucky's face cranes to him, slow, incredulous. "You're an _international fugitive_ and you _still_ haven't figured out how to lie."

"I can lie."

"That was goddamned embarrassing. You know he has feelings for you and you're electing to ignore it because you don't like how he talks to me?"

Steve frowns at the ceiling. "How do you pick up on these things, anyway?"

"I have eyes in my head, Rogers."

"Look," Steve sighs. "It's all very nebulous with Sam. I can't seem to make him happy while being myself happy at the same time."

"Wow. That is a severely ungenerous interpretation of the facts. I'm saying be careful with -- whatever. Cut him a break, the way you seem capable of cutting me a thousand breaks a day."

"So, what, I should bring it up again? 'Say, Sam, I know I love Bucky and that it annoys you for some reason…'"

"How about, 'sorry I dropped literally everything for an entire year, including you, and then let you pick up the dead weight'?"

There is a deliberate pause. "Wow."

"I'm not being critical," Bucky says, sounding exasperated. "But he was your right-hand man, until he wasn't."

"So are you, Sam, and Nat just united in this opinion that I'm not doing enough?"

Bucky sighs harshly. "I'm saying I see you bored and I don't understand why you're retired, and that I don't think they do either."

"Are you kidding me right now?"

Bucky grips at Steve's ribcage and nestles angrily against his chest. "Just… food for thought. Let's shut up about it."

Steve can hear his pulse in his ears, but in the end Bucky's weight wins him over. He forces the tension out of his shoulders as he sinks into the sofa, working his hand back into Bucky's hair.

"Is your neck killing you?" Bucky asks, low, after a while.

"No," Steve says. "You?"

"Not leaving."

Steve smiles; gathers all of Bucky's hair into a ponytail in one gentle hand. "You falling asleep again?"

"Mm."

Steve moves his other hand up to bury in Bucky's hair, too, and hopes that Sam gets lost on the way back over. "Good," says Steve, and shuts his eyes with him.

It's only a couple of minutes before Bucky's breath is slow and even, and if Steve's foot taps impatiently against the arm of the sofa, it's surely just a tic meant to keep him awake.

  


  


  


By the time Sam comes back, Steve has managed to successfully maneuver Bucky off him without waking him up. Having tucked the blanket under him and finally found it in him to disentangle his fingers from his hair, Steve is in the middle of putting coffee on when Sam knocks on the door.

He opens it to see Sam and Natasha both standing there, giving him varyingly disconcerting expressions. Judging by Sam's look of trepidation and Natasha's expression of withdrawn fondness, they have clearly been commiserating about what Sam walked in on this morning.

"I will hear you out," Steve tells them calmly as he sweeps his hand to the side to welcome them in. "I guarantee nothing."

Sam, having opened his mouth to argue, has his train of thought waylaid by the sight of Bucky still on the sofa. "You didn't even wake him up?"

Steve shakes his head. "Not for the world."

"Should we be quiet?" Natasha murmurs.

"Definitely not," says Sam, loudly.

"He'd sleep through a train passing within an inch of him," says Steve, at a regular volume. "You get eggs too?"

"No," says Sam. "I did not get eggs too. You did not tell me you wanted eggs too."

"I always want eggs too."

"He'd sleep through a train passing by him but he won't sleep through someone poking the person he's sleeping on?"

"Friendly voices don't bother him. If someone broke in here, he'd probably wake up. Mind you, he hasn't killed either one of you yet, so maybe not." Steve gives them each a bitter smile. "See, that was a pointed comment about how you always come in here without knocki--"

"Rumour has it you were _whole body cuddling_ when Sam came in," Natasha interrupts. "How could we pass on something so beautiful?"

"Uh-uh, don't project that on me." Sam shakes his head. "I'm on board. I'll knock from now on."

Steve walks past them back behind the counter. "Coffee?"

"Yes," say Sam and Nat in unison as Steve pulls mugs out of the cupboard.

"Your hair looks stunning, by the way," Natasha tells him.

"I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet."

"I'm being serious. You should wear it like that all the time. The look is very in."

"This look hasn't been in since 1998, but I respect your effort."

"Tell that to One Direction," Natasha says.

"Which direction?" says Steve.

Natasha smiles. "Thank you." She holds out a hand expectantly as Sam pulls a five dollar bill out of his wallet.

"You baited him," Sam says, disgruntled. "Barely counts."

"Counts nonetheless."

Steve frowns at them as he slides two full coffee mugs onto the bar. "How many pools you got going on me, exactly?"

"Just one more."

"Is it on whether or not I'm gonna do this mission?"

Natasha makes a hedging noise in her throat. "Maybe."

"I'll assume you're anti," says Steve.

"I really couldn't say."

"Smart."

"I thought so." Natasha smiles at him and ignores Sam's muttered comments about tipping the scales as he hands her a take-out container. "You're fun when you've been cuddling."

"Guaranteed to stay this cheerful if you do this mission without me."

"No," says Sam flatly. "Come on, man, we've gotta help this guy. He showed up for you and he didn't even know what he was fighting _for_."

"Sounds like a job for a superhero," Steve says blandly.

"Don't be like that. Just show up, block a few punches. Lend a fucking hand."

Steve looks at Sam with as much neutrality as he can muster and pulls a takeout container toward him. "Breakfast potatoes, Buck," he says, looking within.

Bucky grunts into the sofa cushion. "Good kind?"

"Bacon fat, onion, bit of cheese."

Bucky throws his legs off the sofa and ambles over to the empty stool at the breakfast bar, eyes barely open. Steve slides the potatoes in front of him and turns to pour him a cup of coffee. 

Sam looks at him sidelong with distaste and incredulity. "Were you awake that whole time?"

"Seems possible," Bucky says through a mouthful of potatoes.

Sam just gestures at the air and looks at Steve. "I don't know how you live with this, I really don't."

"I'm about to make a case for your mission, Wilson,” Bucky says, glaring blearily through sleep-heavy eyes, “so I suggest you stop being an ass."

Steve turns to him slowly. "Bucky…"

Bucky swallows his food. "We owe him."

" _We?_ "

"Does this mission have anything to do with Hydra?" Bucky asks Sam.

"No."

Bucky nods. "Hit me with it."

But Sam suddenly looks uneasy. "Well… hear me out before you agree to anything."

Steve covers his face and leans on his elbows. He's pretty sure he's not gonna like what's coming. "Okay," he says, low. "Let's hear it."

Sam exchanges a look with Natasha, who nods him forward. Steve notices the way his posture straightens with authority as he crosses his arms. "You know anything about Pym Technologies?"

"Heard the name," Steve says.

"Well, it's Stark Industries' main competitor. Develops a lot of tech that we don't know we use every day while also pouring a ton of money into fringe research -- robotics, theoretical physics, that kind of thing. Pym lost control of the company a while ago to his protege Cross, but Cross turned out to be a bad guy, blah blah, now Scott Lang is Ant-Man."

"Uh," says Steve, but Sam doesn't seem to care to elaborate. 

"Cross -- now dead -- was in talks with Stark--"

Abruptly, Steve sets down his mug. "Hang on."

"Yeah," Sam says gravely. "That's my concern. This mission can roughly be summarized as 'severely pissing off Tony Stark.'"

Bucky lowers his head to his food. Steve just takes a hard breath. "Let the tech guys fight amongst themselves, Sam," he says slowly. "They deserve each other."

"You said you'd hear me out," says Sam. "You gonna?"

Steve nurses his coffee and leans down to listen.

Sam glances to Bucky, then barrels on. "Stark Sr. tried to pressure Pym for the secrets of Ant-Man back in '87, back when Pym worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Pym had been secretly operating as Ant-Man for years before his wife got gobbled up into subatomia -- don't ask me how. Stark Sr. wanted to franchise the suit -- Ant-Men everywhere, supersoldier kind of deal. Believe it or not, S.H.I.E.L.D. pressured Pym to do it."

"I believe it," Steve says flatly. 

"Pym resigned from S.H.I.E.L.D. in protest. Wound up forming his company -- which he later lost, along with access to most of his own secrets -- to Cross. You with me so far?"

Loath though Steve is to admit it, this is piquing his interest. "Go on," he sighs.

"Fast-forward twenty-five years. Cross tried to negotiate a limited licensing deal when it came to this Ant-Man shrinking tech, with Stark Jr. this time -- I know," he says, seeing the bewildered look on Steve's face. "Seems like something Stark wouldn't be that interested in -- only he's not looking at it as a superhero thing. Natasha thinks he may be looking at it as a form of resistance."

"Resistance? To what?"

"Institutional measures of control," Sam says flatly, "when they presume to know what's best for the people and wind up doing the wrong thing. Sort of a stealth response."

Steve blinks at him. "We are talking about _Tony_ Stark, right?"

"Call him inconsistent, or volatile, or whatever the hell, but he's not going to stand by and support the institutions that are driving half this country to the edge of violence just trying to defend themselves. He's got the Iron Legion, right? He might magically believe in an oversight body now, but he also believes in maintaining a hell of a lot of personal fire power. Tony's also not stupid. He has money, which means he has connections. My intel says he hasn't been out of the loop on Hydra's activities. In fact, it sounds like he has far more information on Hydra's connection to the current government than anyone else does."

Bucky lets his fork fall into his potatoes and spins off his stool, pacing with a hand in his hair. 

"If he supported the Accords," Sam goes on, "I'm willing to bet half that dedication was born out of the idea that international oversight might, at least, override national oversight in the event it went south. I think he's been in the loop a long time. I think that's what spurned his change of heart when it came to international politics, and I think he's been stockpiling a lot of safeguards in the event that Hydra or the government try to come after him or his secrets."

Steve leans hard against the counter, trying to process. "Why would he withhold intel like that from the rest of us, if he's that worried? In the event the government tries to acquire his assets, won't he need support?"

"Well, for all Stark is still technically a force for freedom in this world -- at least today -- he also stands to lose influence if he pisses off the right people. It's a balance. He basically wants to hold onto his wealth and power, and he can't do that if he's sharing secrets with us _or_ them."

"Plus he's no fan of yours right now," Natasha says airily. "He _is_ sharing some stuff with S.H.I.E.L.D."

Steve throws an arm in the air and joins Bucky in pacing. 

"Calm down," Sam says, frowning. "You look ridiculous."

"Occasionally I think Tony has a brain in his head," Steve says, "and then I hear about shit like this, and I think, why do I even bother?"

"We might not be friends right now, but we shouldn't count out that he might work to our benefit someday," Sam says.

"When it suits him," Steve accuses.

"Yeah," Sam agrees, eyebrows raised. "Kinda like how you tend to go friends-off with people when it suits you."

Steve's shoulders go slack. He blinks a minute. "Sam -- is this about us?"

"What about us? I don't have a problem with you."

"Well, it sure sounds like you do."

"Steve," Bucky warns.

Steve sighs and crosses his arms, forcing himself to lean against the counter again. "Cross tried to make a deal with Stark on the suits. Let's go back to that."

"Nothing to go back to," Sam says shortly. "Deal never happened. Cross is dead now and Pym's back in control of his own company, but he's only just uncovered evidence of this transaction now. Lang's saying we gotta take control of this situation and get whatever info Stark has out of his hands, before he tries to develop a prototype of his own."

"So we're against Stark again," Steve says shortly.

"Yeah," says Sam, "unless we feel comfortable with the idea of tiny Stark iron bots flying around punching shit out of everything without ever being seen in the name of his idea of justice. If Stark's spending his time at the compound these days, that leaves Stark Tower open to infiltration--"

Steve shakes his head; pushes off from the counter. "No way. Too risky. _Way_ too risky."

"Hear out the details on this. Between Natasha, Barnes--"

Bucky makes a noncommittal sound in his throat.

"--Lang, Lang's crew, and possibly a cameo by a couple of other tiny types -- man, don't look at me, I don't know," he adds, throwing his hands out to either side as Steve's eyes widen. "We actually have a pretty good stealth beat. I circle above to keep cover, you and Barnes do the heavy lifting, Nat does the hacking..."

"How many Ant-Men _are_ there, exactly?"

"Well, between Lang and Pym, that's a possible two, though I think Pym's retired by now; plus Pym's daughter, _that's_ two… Cross was one, we don't necessarily know if he had a sidekick or--"

"We don't know," Steve cuts in, feeling annoyed.

"Yeah, man, sorry. Between one and four."

Steve hangs his head; shakes it as he braces his hands against the counter. "I said I wouldn't abandon Lang, and I can appreciate how and why he's asking us to intervene. But this issue is -- complex. Do we know for a fact Tony even has this intel?"

"Apparently the Pym files suggest he does." 

"Do we know whether the intel he has is enough to develop something out of it?"

"Steve, I took Lang's call and that's about it. If you have follow-up questions, you should ask him yourself. I'll give you his number."

"I just don't know if it's smart to take on Tony's considerable defenses when we don't know the whole scope of the--"

"Steve." Sam puts his fingers down hard into his opposite palm. "Lang. Showed up. For you. Show some solidarity this _one time_ and do the same."

"I want to help, but I'm not sure this is how. Second of all -- Sam, I don't want to be part of this world anymore. You know that. Fighting Stark--"

"I think there's something to be said for the idea that once you know about this world, you may never get out completely."

Steve sighs and leans back against the fridge. "That's the kind of assumption I'm combatting against. I don't see why that has to be the case."

"But you don't want S.H.I.E.L.D. to have any power, and you don't want Stark to have any power, so I'm just wondering -- is everyone supposed to fight Hydra alone, without coming together?" Sam stares at him, hands splayed out on either side of him, and Steve realizes this is it -- this is Sam's beef with him. That they feel divided. "We're just all supposed to act as individuals and hope it's enough? Sorry, Steve; I'm with you on most things, but I can't abide that. You can't have it both ways. I can carry a little more than I used to; Nat's in this for the long haul. Seems like Barnes is gonna start fighting Hydra as soon as he knows how, and that means that you're -- what? Just not gonna show up? Or you gonna keep accepting secondary roles and never being happy that we're not giving you all the information upfront when you haven't done shit to earn it?"

"Sam." 

"Look. You want to retire, I support it. Retire, then. But sometimes there's no substitute for Captain America, you know? You can either let go and be fucking grateful for your cushy life, or you can step up from time to time and start building some relationships. Just know that if you don't choose the latter, I've got no interest in sharing intel with you and I don't see how you get to complain about it. If you're out, get out. But from where I'm standing, it doesn't look like you're gonna be. Not if Barnes is going back in." He looks to Bucky. "Are you?"

Bucky stares at him a long while; but then, slowly, he nods. "Eventually."

Sam turns back to Steve. "So what about you? Are you in or out? Because you gotta pick one."

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again. Bucky's glowering at him, as though challenging him to keep his temper. 

"If we're taking on Hydra," he finally says, coarse, "I want to be part of it."

Sam nods; seems to deflate a bit. "Okay."

"And I want to do it a hell of a lot better than Stark."

Natasha smiles around the rim of her mug. Sam smirks, too. "Alright."

"But I don't want to be Captain America anymore, and I don't think it's fair of you to expect me to operate at that capacity. That's not a standard I want to meet. I was a tool more than I was a leader, Sam, and I want the space and freedom required to make my own decisions on matters. Taking down Hydra -- yeah, you got me. Helping Scott Lang, sure. Helping you and Natasha, any goddamned day. But I don't know about breaking into Stark Tower. That's not the kind of risk I want to run."

"That's your prerogative; fine. But you be honest about what you're doing here, which is that you are not helping Lang. You are intentionally choosing not to show up for Lang when he showed up for you."

"You're misunderstanding me. I want time to come up with an alternative plan." He chews on his cheek and looks from Sam to Natasha. "I'll get the project schematics. Just let me figure out how."

Sam's looking at him with something like surprise. "Okay then," he says. "I'll bring by the files, you can look through them yourself."

Steve's shoulders collapse. "Thank you."

Sam stares at him a minute, like he's trying to figure him out. Then, slowly, he pulls pancakes toward himself as though to declare the issue settled. "That all you wanted?" Sam mutters, yanking the plastic knife from Bucky's fidgeting hand. "To be part of something without being responsible for it?"

Steve smiles, a little. "Maybe. I've always liked working with a team, but I don't want to…" He sighs and looks up. "After all these years of war, Sam -- I need a break from command. Too many lives lost. It takes a toll. For now -- I'm out of that capacity. At least for a while -- don't put it on me."

Sam meets his eye; then, chewing slowly, he nods as though understanding. "Okay," he says. "Take your break. I get it. But I hope you're serious about getting back in," he says, brandishing a fork, "because I could use your consultation now and again. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing and Natasha's missions look -- ah -- a little different than what you and me tend to put together."

"I'll tell you something, Sam," Steve says, carving up some waffles, "I think you're already a better Captain America than I ever was. So far as I'm concerned, you've more than got it covered. But you need me? Call, anytime, anyplace. For a consult, I'm around. It's the tough decisions I don't want to make."

Sam blinks at him, a little stunned. Then they all eat in silence for a while, Bucky fidgeting nervously with his fork.

"So to be clear," Bucky says eventually. "We're _not_ breaking into Stark Tower."

"No," says Steve.

"Give it time," says Natasha.

" _No,_ " Steve says, emphatic. "We're negotiating."

"We're _negotiating_?" say Bucky and Natasha in unison.

Sam suddenly squints down the counter at them. "Do you two have the same damn haircut?"

Bucky pulls out his hairtie and scowls at him.

"I used to have normal friends," Sam tells the ceiling. "No one had superpowers but me. Those were good times."

"You never had normal friends," Steve argues.

"More normal than you," says Sam.

"That's not hard."

"I'll give you that."

Steve smirks at him and stabs at his waffles a while. "Did you really have a plan to break into Stark Tower?"

Sam sighs regretfully. "Yeah."

"Can I… see it?"

"I'll bring it with the other files." He nods to Steve. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"This."

Sam nods. "We'll go over all of it, plus some other stuff if you want."

"I'll pick up some beer," Steve says, a little happily.

"Aww," Natasha says. "Are you two getting back together?"

"Please don't make this weird," Sam says.

"Sweet, isn't it?" Bucky says, as though Sam hadn't spoken.

Sam catches Steve's eye. "Can we hang out _alone_ tomorrow?" he asks dryly.

Steve smiles wide around a bite of waffle. "Yeah, Sam. Whatever you want."

  


  


  


Sam walks Steve through the would-be mission the next day with a smile on his face that suggests, in hindsight, he knows it was ridiculous. Steve laughs; they both do. For an hour, it's a nice time.

Then Sam drops his smile and takes a manilla envelope out from among the Pym files he brought with him.

"Listen -- I wasn't sure how to say this yesterday. I wanted to talk to you alone." 

Steve's smile drops at once. "What is it?"

"The intel Natasha and I were uncovering overseas... we were focused on the Red Room program. The things we found had a lot to do with that. But -- especially since we learned what we did in Chicago -- it's not that surprising that we found some overlap." He sets the envelope on the table. "Reports on the Winter Soldier program. There's a lot in there about Barnes." 

Steve leans forward on his elbows and doesn't say a word. 

"I don't think he should see it," Sam continues. "Nat's read it in full. I've looked at it. But it's basically up to -- to you, or maybe to Barnes, what happens to it." Sam leans forward too, and for a second they stare at each other, languishing in the severity of the moment. "There's a reason I'm running this by you and not him." 

"It's too much," Steve says, and nods. 

"There's no doubt it could be. I don't have a good grasp on how stable he is in terms of facing up to his past. So I wanted to run the situation by you. This has detailed information on--" he hesitates -- "the methods they used to brainwash him."

"Give it to me straight, Sam."

"He was tortured a long time," Sam says at once. "He ever talk to you about that?"

Steve, barely, he shakes his head.

Sam nods. He leans back in his chair. "But you know it happened."

"I know -- how I found him in that bunker." His hand closes into a fist. "I've read about the Faustus method. How they made him forget."

"Okay. But -- generalities. Theoretical stuff; nothing from Barnes' file in specific."

Steve shakes his head, almost imperceptibly.

"Okay. This--" Sam presses a finger hard on the file -- "leaves nothing to speculation. It spells it all out. It is detailed and it is brutal, and I'm detached from the situation but I had to take some time after I saw a lot of this stuff. I need you to think long and hard, Steve, about whether you even want to know. And about whether Barnes would want you to know. Because this information needs to go somewhere. It needs to be trusted to someone who will know what to do with it." He slides it across the table toward him. "I don't know him the way you do. I get the impression there's a whole lot of him you see that we don't. But someone goes through something like this, he either doesn't remember it all or he doesn't want to." Sam ducks and catches his downcast eye. "If it were me in your shoes, I'd read the file myself and destroy it before he ever gets his hands on it. But it's up to you. You do what you think is best. No one would fault you if you couldn't do a thing with it."

Steve just stares at the envelope. "We need this to fight Hydra?"

"That's what I think. We gotta know what we're fighting, and if the two of you are gonna be a unit, maybe it's enough that only one of you knows." Sam shrugs. "Whether it's easier for you to deal with because it didn't happen to you, or whether it's easier for Barnes because it did happen to him... that's not a call I can make. I leave it up to you to manage it, one way or another." 

Steve sits a long time without saying a word. "Thank you," he finally says; then he slides the envelope off the table just not to have to look at it anymore. 

  



	7. Chapter 7

  


For a long time, Steve does his best not to think about the contents of the envelope.

He doesn't look at them. He doesn't bring it up to Bucky. The files sit in a closet, like a timebomb wrapped in secrets. It's a bad place for it; Bucky could find it any day. It's at the bottom of a duffel full of old Cap uniforms handed to Steve when they moved in, "just in case he needed them." He's pretty sure Bucky won't look in there.

But he might.

Avoiding the situation isn't doing either of them any good, but that's what Steve does anyway. He draws compulsively, trying to distract himself. He goes over the files for Sam's mission again and again but the words never seem to sink in. It's all a wash of Pym, Stark, and the vulgarities of human experimentation.

What would he find if he looked in the file? Only details? Or pictures?

Had Sam said? Had Steve's heart been pounding too loud in his ears for him to have heard?

He runs, and then he draws. If Bucky minds his sudden compulsions, he doesn't say a thing.

Until he does.

Steve wakes one morning to find Bucky lazily leafing through one of the seven sketchbooks he's filled cover to cover in recent weeks. "This one's pretty good," he says, showing Steve one page. "But not as good as this one." He flips to another, which Steve had filled in every inch of with scribbles from a thick pencil gauge. "What do you call this, Midnight Silhouette?"

Steve rubs his hands over his face, not feeling remotely awake enough to deal with this. "Do I give running critique of your baking experiments?" he says, stumbling into the kitchen for coffee.

"No, you just serenade me while I'm trying to perfect my recipes. We show affection in different ways."

"This is you showing your affection right now?"

"You're hiding something."

Steve blinks at him, hand tensed at the handle of the fridge. "No I'm not."

It _sounds_ like a lie. Steve's never been good at that.

"You go from not drawing for -- what, three years? -- to suddenly drawing all day every day, nonstop. Sometimes the same thing eight times in a row."

"So you haven't gotten through all the books yet," Steve mutters.

"What?"

He hopes Bucky doesn't find the one that's just the slope of Bucky's instep for a third of the damn book. "Nothing."

"No, there's something, and it's eating you. You think I don't know when things are eating you?"

"Things eat you all the time."

"They're supposed to eat me. You're too stubborn for that."

Steve's leaning over the counter, looking at its marble with hunched shoulders, and Bucky points to him like his point's been proven. "Look at that. Is that Steve Rogers?"

"I gotta tell you something," Steve says into his arms.

"Oh, yeah? You think?"

"Buck..."

Bucky's indignation falls. He struggles to sitting and looks at Steve seriously. "Whoa, okay. What's up?"

Steve stares at him and breathes a long time, then he holds up a finger and disappears into the bedroom. When he comes back he has the folder in hand. 

He throws it down onto the counter.

"I need to know what you remember about your time with Hydra," Steve says.

He managed to keep the tremor out of his voice, but Bucky blinks at him anyway. His gaze flits to the envelope. 

"What's in it?" he asks. His voice carves deep, low with dread.

"Sam says it's details."

It's as far as he gets. Bucky seems to understand. "Oh."

"I didn't know whether to look at it."

"Don't."

Steve nods and lets out a shuddering breath.

" _Sam_ brought this to you."

"Sam and Nat. They found it when they were looking for--"

"Oh."

"They say it's the only copy."

"And you haven't looked at it," Bucky says.

"I haven't looked at it," Steve swears.

"Burn it," Bucky says.

Steve doesn't move a muscle.

Bucky seems to be vibrating with something unsaid. "Burn it," he says slowly, "in front of me, immediately, without looking at it."

"Sam said--"

" _Fuck Sam._ "

"--that one of us should know, so that when we fight Hydra--"

" _I_ know."

Steve blinks at him. "You -- remember?"

"Of course I fucking remember." He's shaking with it, making himself small. Steve sees the way he's trying to keep his habits in check: pacing the room, checking for bugs. "You think I'm like this for sport?"

"Bucky--"

"Get rid of the evidence. No person should see it. No person should know it happened--"

"The history--"

"The history of the precise ways I was tortured and robbed of my agency, Rogers, again and again, for _years_ on end, deserves to be destroyed and lost forever." Bucky's breath comes hard, harsh out of his nose. "You think I don't wish I could forget? I would, given the option. I don't want to read it from a fucking bird's eye point of view, and you haven't earned this information about me."

Steve blinks. "I haven't?"

"What are you -- insulted? If you'd been reduced to a thing that follows orders by methods that literally robbed me of my humanity in every possible respect, wouldn't you want to spare me the details?"

Steve stares at him. He forces his own breathing down; holds Bucky's eye until he does the same.

"Are you holding me hostage with this right now?" Bucky asks him, voice shaking. "Burn it."

"No," Steve says. "I'm not holding you hostage. I just -- want to know you won't keep sweeping this under the rug."

"Sweeping _what_ under the rug?"

"You... have memories of being tortured."

"Yes."

"I didn't know that."

Bucky blinks, hard. "Okay. And?"

"Are they in-depth?"

"What if they are?"

"I feel like that's something we have to figure out how to deal with."

Bucky blinks at him. " _We_ don't have to deal with anything."

"Okay, but--"

"Who says I'm not dealing with it?"

Steve forces himself steady. "You haven't mentioned it."

Bucky stares at him, dead-on. "I haven't mentioned it _to you._ "

The truth of it creeps over him, settles in him, awful. 

"Oh," says Steve.

"Where do you think I go for two hours three days a week?"

Steve's heart is pounding. "I honestly don't know."

"Don't play stupid."

"I'm not. You told me you were going to the market, so I assumed you were going to the market."

“With my history? That’s pretty obtuse. You should have checked up on me.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

“No, it’s not what I wanted!”

“Then why would I violate your trust like that?”

Bucky exhales hard and stares at Steve like he doesn't know what to do with him. “Within a week of landing from Wakanda, Sam took me aside and gave me the number of someone who might help. I see her three days a week. She's great. Specializes in shit like mine. She thinks I fought in Afghanistan, or if she's figured out different she keeps her mouth shut."

Steve finds he has to sit down. He drags a chair from behind the bar and sits in it, hands clasped over his mouth. "Why wouldn't you tell me this?"

"Because," Bucky says, voice thin, "I figured -- apparently rightfully -- that you would feel somehow insulted that I'm not bringing all my shit to you direct."

"I'm not insulted."

"You just wish I'd clued you in on the details of how I'm choosing to work through this, like it somehow belongs to you."

Steve straightens, bewildered. He has no idea where this is coming from. "Bucky."

"Are you pissed that I still have a sliver of a life independent from you?"

" _No._ "

Bucky keeps talking, fast and immediate, like he's been holding onto this for some time. "I’m never gonna be one hundred percent transparent with you, Steve. It's who I am as a person. I will never clue you into what I went through with Hydra. I will spare you that for your sake, and mine. It should not in any way form the basis of our relationship."

"It--"

"Shut the fuck up. The fact that you're still talking tells me my decision is sound."

Bucky's moved away from sounding afraid and sounds as certain as Steve's ever heard him, so he does. He shuts up.

"I want to keep it separate from you," Bucky says, forcing his voice quiet when Steve doesn't talk again, "but you've already seen too much of it. You know they made it about you. You were the only thing to get me past that initial hurdle, and I'm grateful. But now you think my recovery belongs to you."

Steve blinks. His head bows. He wants to argue, but he just looks back up at Bucky with a fist clenched against his knee.

"It doesn't," Bucky says. It sounds prompting.

"I know," says Steve.

"I can't cleanse whatever the hell your own flaming hellpit is causing you and I think you've lied yourself into thinking I can."

Steve can't help but blink through that one. "Is that what your therapist tells you?"

Bucky points at him. "That is _exactly_ the kind of _fucking shit_ I don't want to hear from you."

Steve throws his arms in the air and starts pacing. "So do you -- are you -- why are you _here_ , Bucky? Do you think you _owe me_ because I helped you work through the trigger?"

Bucky breathes at him a minute. "No," he says, but it's a little too quiet.

"Are you -- _lying_?"

"No." Still quiet. "I'm here because I--"

Steve lets his gaze fall to the floor and waits for the tension to break. He waits for Bucky to find the words, but in the end he just swallows and clears his throat.

"I don't know why I have a hard time getting that out," Bucky says, and there's just enough irony in it to make Steve smile. "Guess I haven't gotten that far with my therapist yet."

Steve looks at him. Bucky looks back. He looks sad, suddenly. Steve feels it in his chest.

"Can we try this again," Steve says, stepping over the arm of the sofa, "without the anger?"

Bucky nods and pushes himself up to sitting. His limbs tremble a little. Steve fights the urge to reach out and help to still them. He's not sure if that would be welcome anymore.

"I would have liked to know something as significant as the fact that you were seeing a therapist," Steve says. Then, deciding he is who he is just as Bucky is Bucky, he wraps his hand loose, stroking around Bucky's ankle. 

Bucky stretches out; accepts the comfort, even as he throws a pillow over his face. “Why?” he asks into the fabric. “Why does it matter how I deal with it?”

“Because I care about your well-being. Not knowing that you remembered stuff like that -- and not knowing that you were dealing with it on your own time -- seems like a pretty serious omission to me.”

“I’m not your charge.”

“No. You’re not. I'd have taken the news with a nod and a suggestion for dinner.”

"Yeah, that's definitely how it went here."

“Buck--"

“Let me be defensive,” Bucky growls, re-emerging to glare at him.

“Fine. Be defensive. I’m trying to say I care.”

“Sometimes your ‘caring’ is like a shroud over my whole existence, you know that?”

Steve goes rigid. Moments pass, and Bucky won't look at him. 

"That's the second time you've said something like that," Steve says.

Bucky disappears under the pillow again; then reappears when Steve doesn't say anything else.

Steve's just looking at him with a hand over his mouth, realizing with dread what he should have noticed months ago. "How long have you been harbouring this resentment about me?"

"I don't resent you," Bucky says, quiet.

"You resent -- what we've had to do."

Another pause; then, slowly, Bucky nods. "That sounds closer."

Steve's getting the idea. "You're going to leave me," he realizes aloud.

"I'm not -- _going_ to leave you." Bucky's hand finds Steve's ankle where it's nestled beside him.

"But you want to."

Bucky stares at the ceiling and doesn't say anything.

Whatever's left of Steve's resolve collapses. He pitches forward, burying his face in his knees.

"Please don't," Bucky whispers, and then he's sitting up too, folding Steve into his arms. "I don't want to, that's not it."

"I'm not trying to make this about me," Steve mumbles, choking down the burning in his throat and his lungs.

"I don't think you have a choice," Bucky says, liberally.

"Don't be an ass."

"I don't have another mode."

“No one’s forcing you to be here, Buck.”

“I know that. I want to be here. You gotta believe I want to stay."

Steve rubs his face on his knees and looks at Bucky with his cheek pressed against them. He feels like he's small again.

“That’s the whole point," Bucky goes on. "Of this. That’s why I’m going off by myself and doing this, without talking about it with you. I need to breathe, Rogers. You can’t be the only thing I have.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “I want you to breathe.”

“What you want is not relevant to this conversation.”

Steve strives to accept this with a square jaw. “I just wish I’d known."

“I didn’t want you to know. I didn't want you to know I talked to someone else about -- us. About this. About the fact that our relationship was used to destroy me, and then build me back up again. I _can't_ talk about any of that with you. It's too fucking meta. I just want you to be -- a good thing that I have, without the torture years forming a basis for it. I want you to be the thing that helps me move on from that, not the person who's dragging me through it."

Steve nods. He taps gentle at Bucky's wrist; waits for Bucky's fist to unfurl and grab angrily at his fingers. 

"I'm not sorry I hid it from you," Bucky tells him, firm.

"Fine," Steve says, just as stubborn. "I'm not sorry I wanted to know."

"Fine. Then we're both assholes and nobody's sorry."

Steve smiles, despite himself.

"You've hidden plenty of shit from me too, by the way," Bucky says. He presses his lips to Steve's knuckles and then lets go, settling back against the cushions.

"I don't think that's--"

"Why'd you kiss that blonde in Germany?"

Steve shuts his eyes hard. "Oh."

"You drag me out of my home, get me put in jail, throw me in a tiny car with a bird man that hates me, and then kiss some _blonde girl_ right in front of me. What was that, 24 Hours of Hell with Steve Rogers?"

"It wasn't…"

"What about your feelings for Sam?"

"What feelings for Sam?!"

"How many times have you slept with Natasha, by the way? Or am I imagining whatever the hell you two clearly have going on?"

Steve buries his face in his hands.

"But _my_ shit. _That_ you have to hear out loud."

Steve huffs and re-emerges, sure he's tingeing pink. "You're suggesting that because I don't bring up my disastrous emotional state in casual conversation with you, I have to just… let you deal with your traumatic past by yourself, without follow-up?"

Bucky nods with pursed lips. "Yeah. That sounds about right."

"Jesus."

"Come on, Steve. You're misrepresenting the situation. You know way the fuck more about it than anyone should. You lived through half of it _with_ me. You've put in too much as it is."

Steve hears it resonate: _Too much,_ a crowing refrain.

"So what's happening right now," Bucky says. "This fucking _tension_ every time you intuit the fact that I want space from you. Is that on the list of things you want to talk about or the things we don't talk about? Guess that one's your call."

Steve doesn't want to talk about it. He'd do anything not to. But he rubs angrily at his eyes and looks at Bucky dead-on, sure he's bloodshot and not caring. "You want to leave."

But Bucky shakes his head, slowly, before meeting Steve's eye. "No. I really don't. I don't want to leave you." He sighs, hard and heavy, then sits up to kiss him, soft and sweet. "I love you, you gotta know that. It's hard for me to say but it doesn't make it less true."

Steve nods. He slides a hand along Bucky's jaw and swallows hard against the lump in his throat.

"But it -- it doesn't change the nature of the beast. You're part of it." Bucky shrugs. "You were always part of it. And right now you -- help me. I feel safer with you around. It's good for me to wake up and see you there and know you're not a hallucination or that you're going to compel me to do anything I don't want to do. It's good to know that if we get compromised, I won't have to fight anyone off alone. That's an important baseline for me to establish."

"Your therapist sounds good," Steve says nasally, and Bucky hits him in the shoulder.

"But I'm worried about checking constantly. I'm worried about operating when you're not there. The mission -- I wouldn't have done it if you weren't nearby. I couldn't have. Without you in the vents I couldn't have handled it."

"I think you could've."

"That's nice," Bucky says, deadpan. "Doesn't change what I think, though."

Steve blinks at him. Bucky blinks back. "They used you to ruin me," Bucky grits out, "and by some miracle you were the thing that pulled me back out. But that -- makes you the concluding chapter in that part of my life, Steve. And I don't know if I can start the next one with..."

Suddenly it hits Steve so hard that he pulls away with its veracity.

He tries to hold Bucky's eye, but Bucky can't look at him. He just hunches over his knees and palms angrily at his eyes, as affected by it as Steve seems to be. 

Steve finds the strength he seemed to abandon the second Bucky started arguing him down. He swallows hard; lets emotion choke him for another second, then breathes through it and takes Bucky's hand. “It was never beyond me that you might have to leave me someday, Bucky," he grinds out. "It's your right, and I… support you. If that's what you want."

Bucky takes a steadying breath; looks to the ceiling, turned half away. “I _don’t_ want to," he grinds. “I don’t want to."

“I get it.”

“But I might — have to.”

“I know.”

“To be -- me. To be... better.”

“I--” But his voice cuts off, then. That's the limit of all he can say.

Bucky's reached a limit, too. He headbutts Steve in the chest and Steve slowly unfurls, forcing the tension from his form as Bucky climbs on top of him. “I still wouldn’t be without you,” he mutters, nestling against Steve's chest. “Seems I take you wherever I go, whether I want to or not.”

Steve gives a watery smile. “That's pathetic," he says, raking his fingers through Bucky's hair. "You ever consider seeing a therapist for that?"

"You're a real fuckin' comedian, you know that?" He looks at him sharply. "Is that gonna be a running joke now?"

"I'll drop it if you never mention the Sharon thing again."

"Who? Oh -- you mean the blonde you kissed in front of me after that measly CIA imprisonment thing?"

Steve chokes out an awful laugh. "Ah, fuck."

"Yeah, Rogers," Bucky says. "You said it."

They lie still for a while. Bucky moves his head and sets his ear, Steve knows, to better hear the beat of his heart.

"Don't go without telling me," Steve says after a while.

"I don't even know if I'm leaving."

"But if you do… just tell me to my face. I'll know why, you don't have to explain. I just -- no notes in the middle of the night." 

Bucky nods, slow. "Exception being if I'm being chased."

"Exception granted."

His voice turns over in his throat. "Thank you for your authorization."

Steve smiles, but it's mostly just sad.

  


  


  


"I want to burn that envelope," Bucky murmurs, after Steve thinks he's asleep, having spent the last twenty minutes examining Bucky's unfamiliar black hair between his fingers. And they do -- right there in the kitchen sink. The lighter's in Bucky's hand and his prosthetic holds the folder aloft, watching the flames curl higher around it.

"Good riddance," Bucky mutters. He doesn't flinch when the fire licks at his fingers.

  


  


  


"I have a proposition."

Tony looks at him like he's grown a second head. Steve, already sensing his blood threatening to rise, just blinks at him until Tony's done concocting his remarks.

"I'm sorry," Tony says eventually. It's obvious from his tone he's not sorry at all. "I got distracted by the cat on your face. Were you talking?"

Steve runs a distracted hand over his beard. He probably should have at least trimmed it before offering himself to Tony for a ritual thrashing. "I want to re-establish ties."

"Well that's great," Tony says. "That's fantastic. I'm thrilled to hear it. Where's your boyfriend?"

"At home."

"At your home?"

"Probably making a nice dinner. He's been on about Mexican food lately."

"Well, nice talking to you. I don't deal with accessories to murder… fugitives. Or whatever. Bye now."

"I'd like to set up an information exchange."

"Now why the hell do you think I'd be interested in--"

"Bucky didn't kill your parents," Steve says calmly. "Hydra did. Hydra ordered it. They used their best weapon to carry it through."

"And now he's being rewarded with a nightly blowjob by Captain America."

Steve exhales, slow. "You get two more of those."

"Two more of _what_?"

"Ad hominem attacks. Then I walk out."

"Is that supposed to be a _threat_?"

"We're going after Hydra," Steve says. His voice is a sea of tranquility. He can see Tony's aggression tick higher with every one of Steve's failures to escalate. "Me and Natasha and Sam and Bucky. We've been uncovering evidence of their current state of operations. They're in the country, Tony; they're in the _government._ I know you can't be blind to that."

"You expect me to team up -- with that?"

"No. But I expect you to be interested in the information we find."

"And why--"

"I want the people who put Bucky under unimaginable torture; who ordered the deaths of your parents just to make more like him; who created Natasha as an assassin without regard for her humanity; who has infiltrated the United States government to the point where the sitting President is a puppet for their interests... I want them to pay. I want them to be read their last rites and I want to be there when it happens." Steve gestures at him, lets his hand fall against his own thigh. "For once, Tony, you and I agree. You want oversight? So do I. But of them. Not of us."

Tony's eyes start rolling before Steve's even finished. "Oh, you arrogant -- _insolent_ son of a--"

"I'm not done," Steve interrupts. "The Avengers have been operating on halfway assumptions for the last five years. We didn't come close to scratching the surface of what's really happening. The reason for the carnage and the destruction that made you call for the Accords in the first place can be almost entirely tracked back to the organization that I've been trying to take down since 1933. Tony -- Hydra is our enemy. Hydra has caused all of this. They killed your parents. They tried to kill my best friend. And they are operating at a high capacity right here in the United States. Any attempt at institutional oversight of _us_ is going to include _them_. Tell me you know this."

"Contrary to popular belief in your circle, Cap, I'm not actually an idiot."

"I know you're not. That's why I'm here." Steve holds up the envelope in his hand and throws it on Tony's desk. "You have intellectual property from Pym Technologies in your possession."

Tony looks at the envelope, then up at Steve.

"I know you better than to think you'd ever have submitted anything like that to an oversight committee, Tony," Steve says quietly. "You want to keep your secrets, too."

"Are you," Tony says, voice low, "actually blackmailing me?" He looks around the room, as though for institutional support. "Is anybody else seeing that Captain America is blackmailing me?"

"I see it, Master Stark," chimes FRIDAY from above.

"Thank you, FRIDAY," says Tony mildly.

"I'm not blackmailing you," says Steve. "You don't agree with my terms, I'll walk out. You won't hear from me again. It's not a threat; it's a fact." Then he frowns. "And second of all, I'm not Captain America."

"I can see that," Tony mutters. "He would never wear that kind of beard."

"I'm undercover."

"You know, most people just dye their hair."

"My point is that I want to propose a trade." Steve points to himself and then out the window. "Our team has an in with Scott Lang."

"Yeah. I remember."

"Then you've probably guessed that this is paper-trail evidence of your unfinished deal with Cross. I'd tell you it was done for illegitimate reasons and that Cross was trying to get the suit to Hydra just as much as anyone else, but something tells me you already know that." Steve shrugs, trying to look passive. "I'm asking you to do the decent thing and respond to Pym's request to return the prototype documents without kicking up a fuss about it."

"And now here comes the part where you pretend you have something to offer me in return."

"Files," Steve says simply. "Reams and reams of them. Mostly in Eastern European languages I can't read, but I'm sure Natasha would help with any translations you may need. She and Sam acquired them last year."

"Files on--" Tony's eyes flit over him, judging. "Your boyfriend's condition."

"On the torture he endured," Steve says. "On the ways they dismantled his humanity piece by piece until he became their instrument for destruction--"

"Is this supposed to evoke a sympathy in me?"

"I'm making a point," Steve sighs. "Whatever beef you have with Bucky -- it _pales_ in comparison to the fact that Hydra ordered the kill on your parents. He was following orders he couldn't fight."

"Whose hand," Tony says, "was it, that wrapped around my mother's throat?"

"It wasn't Bucky's," Steve says simply. "Bucky lost his arm in the war."

Something about it seems to strike him. Tony blinks at Steve a second, teeth grinding.

"That bunker we were in in Siberia," Steve says. "Those other dead soldiers. They were the ones made by the serums Hydra pulled from the trunk of your father's car."

"So it was my _father's_ fault my mom was murdered."

"No. Your mother didn't need to be murdered at all. Neither of them did. If the serums were all they wanted, why not knock your father unconscious and steal the serums when they were still in his hand?"

Tony narrows his eyes. "Are you actually trying to reason with me--"

"Hydra had a plan then," Steve says loudly, temper ebbing. "Hydra has a plan now. They wanted your father out of the way; they want Bucky out of the way. They want Natasha out of the way; they want me out of the way; they probably want you out of the way too, and that is why we keep having to fight minions hired by Hydra who make the world a fucking shithouse." 

Steve pushes off from Tony's desk and paces the room a minute, one hand on his hip, the other holding at his mouth to keep the bile at bay. "Let me be very clear," Steve says, before Tony can recover enough to respond. "Hydra killed me. They killed Bucky. In the last thirty years, they've made Bucky into their weapon. They killed your parents. They made Natasha into their weapon; they made all of us into their weapons -- including you, Stark. The things you've been trying to grapple with? The moral ambiguity you told me you feel is connected with the degree of power that comes with your wealth?" Steve gestures on either side of him. "If you hadn't been blackmailed into a weapons deal in the first place by forces bigger than you, would you even have ever built the suit?"

Steve pauses to breathe at him. He sees Tony's face squared, his eyes wide, but -- against the odds -- Tony actually seems to be listening.

"Hydra is bigger than you or me," Steve says. "It is bigger than Bucky or your dad or the President of the fucking United States."

"Is the swearing part of the beard thing you got going on?" Tony asks, leaning forward onto one palm. "I'm really interested in this whole aesthetic."

"But the rest of us, talking to each other, maybe even banding together when it makes sense to do it?" Steve shrugs, ignoring every word Tony said. "We can be bigger than them."

"Yeah," Tony remarks. "Because that went so great before."

"We were idiots before," Steve says flatly. "We didn't know who we were fighting. Under S.H.I.E.L.D., in cases, we were fighting _for_ them. Since then, we've mostly fought each other. I don't think that's accidental."

"You think Hydra is causing you to be a stubborn asshole about the Accords."

"I think Pepper left you and you keep running into things that remind you of what you don't want to think about, and that you blame yourself for a lot of things when -- from my perspective -- it kinda just looks like you've been doing to best you know how."

The words had rolled out of him as though from his own heart, and for a second, Steve wonders where the hell it's coming from. 

From the way Tony's suddenly taken to playing with a letter opener instead of looking at him, Steve has the impression he hit a nerve with him, too. "And your boyfriend?" Tony mutters, raising his head. "He's into this whole thing? This anti-Hydra brigade?"

"He ran support for a casual mission last month," Steve says, nodding. "He did well."

Tony's eyebrows shoot up. "That sounds safe," he says patronizingly.

"Only one person in that Siberian bunker tried to kill any other," Steve reminds him, "and it wasn't Bucky. Now I'm not asking you to associate with him. I'm asking you to associate with me and Sam and Nat and--" He rolls his eyes. "God help me, S.H.I.E.L.D., I guess, when applicable."

"Oh! Has someone finally told you about that?"

"Don't act so happy. Not knowing what's going on is exactly the problem I'm trying to solve."

Tony nods, tongue rolling in his mouth as though chewing over what Steve's just said. "So -- let me get this straight. I just want to be clear."

Steve senses what's coming just from his tone. He sighs and throws himself in the chair on the other side of Tony's desk, burying his face in his hands. "Go ahead."

"You want me to surrender intellectual property I legally acquired by means of a proposed business deal years ago for _no_ good reason that _I_ can see--"

Steve shuts his eyes and nods, leaning back, neck craning.

"--and you want me to do this so that -- what -- you and me can be friends again?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Steve mumbles.

"And you want me to do this -- again, I reiterate, with _no_ apparent immediate benefit to me -- as a favour to you, so that you can resume your crusade against a gigantic, unknowable entity that has consumed your life over the course of seven decades, now with the benefit of Pym's resources behind you--"

"I mean, I took breaks."

"--and you want me to do this with the _full_ knowledge that the man who killed my mother is going to be at the forefront of this initiative which you insist -- quite hilariously, I might add! -- must operate with no oversight whatsoever, because _what if that oversight has a Hydra mole in it_?"

"But -- y'know -- for the greater good."

Tony stares at him. "Tell me you're joking with that."

"Look," Steve says, waving a hand. "I'm not gonna say it again. Sam and Natasha have been single-handedly carrying on an extensive investigation of the Red Room program, and they've come up with a _lot_ of information. You give the information Pym wants back to him, and I'm sure that'll open some informational doors for you. I know for a fact that among those files are details on what kinds of methods they're using in training people as weapons for Hydra. Pre-opting Hydra's technology? Isn't that what you spend half your spare time doing anyway?"

"It's not spare time, peaches. It's my job. It's what I do for my job, to keep you chucklefucks from getting your asses kicked when you get in over your head--"

"Last month in Chicago," Steve says, talking over him, "some Hydra agents told us the Winter Soldier program and Red Room program are basically combined."

"And you trust that intel?"

"I -- yeah. Absent other information."

Tony scoffs, looking at Steve as though thinking him a ripe fool.

"This is why we need open avenues of information," Steve says. "We have to pool what we know together to avoid acting on bad intel. Tony -- I don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm not gonna trust S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury's a good man, but anything he's involved with is gonna stink like war to me."

"And you're just taking on an international organization known for starting wars for the sake of peace and tranquility."

"I'm not taking anything on myself," Steve says, talking to his hands. "I know I want to see Hydra pay. I know that means I'm working for the wrong reasons. So I'm letting others lead, for a while." He raises his head and looks at Tony with a sigh. "I'm mediating. I'm playing support. A good friend put it to me recently that fighting alone looks a lot like fighting in vain. If we -- if any of us -- want anything resembling answers or justice for the things we've been wronged for, we can't afford to stand apart." He taps a finger against the envelope on Tony's desk. "That starts with a gesture of good faith. I've tried to make one here. Maybe you can make one to Pym and trust that, when the time comes, Pym tech will work in our favour, with the right connections in place." 

Steve rises from the chair, making to leave.

"And you're just gonna leave this with me and trust you won't need the leverage?" Tony asks him.

Steve sighs; stares at him, and tries to see it from where he's coming from. "I trust you, Tony. And I think you trust me."

"Much less than you think," Tony says.

"Well, maybe it's enough. You know you're better protected with more allies on your side; or maybe you're about to figure out that working with us is your best shot at figuring out why your mother had to die. Either way -- there's the schematics details we were given. I'm not gonna hold it over you. What happens now is up to you. Sam's contact info's on the front page -- don't hesitate to use it if you change your mind."

This time when Steve turns to leave, Tony lets him.

  



	8. Chapter 8

  


Sam storms in, once again, without knocking.

Steve blinks at him from where he's washing dishes, but can't even seem to muster annoyance. Truth be told, he's glad for the company. "Hi."

Sam just throws down a folder on the counter and stands there looking pissed. Steve dries off his hands and opens the top flap a little gingerly.

"How the hell'd you do this?" Sam asks.

"I negotiated."

Sam stares at him. " _Steve._ "

Steve props his weight against long arms on the counter. "You're not gonna like it."

"I already don't like it. The material Stark requested makes a list longer than my arm," Sam says. "He is significantly misled as to what kind of information we turned up in Europe, and so the fuck it seems are you. Why would you offer something you don't even know the scope of?"

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again. "I don't know."

"' _I negotiated._ ' Jesus. You wouldn't know a normal negotiation if it danced naked in front of you. You know how much of this shit details what Natasha went through being trained as a Widow? And you just handed that to Stark without a second thought to her?"

Steve stares. He shuts his eyes; leans over himself, runs his hands over his face.

"So it didn't even occur to you," says Sam.

"It -- it -- I just assumed that she'd keep out any information she didn't want to convey."

"She did," Sam says, eyebrows steepling. "In the end she got to control her own information, no thanks to you."

"I should've checked."

"Well, _yeah_."

Steve looks at him, shame plunging deep into the core of him. "Is she -- speaking to me?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "As it turns out, her expectations for you are a hell of a lot lower than mine are." Steve bows his head again. "She's used to information about her flooding the web at this point. Stark's kind of a drop in the pond. I'm not sure she was ever even pissed. _Me,_ on the other hand…"

"Yeah." Steve sighs at him. "I'm trying. I'm not succeeding, but… Sam..."

Sam blinks at him a few times, arms crossed, before dissolving with a sigh into the nearest chair. "What's the matter with you?"

Steve waves a hand. "I'm fine."

"No you're not. You look like shit."

"Thank you," Steve deadpans.

"You back to not sleeping?"

Steve spins a lazy finger in the air. "The other thing."

"Sleeping eighteen hours, then."

"Hey, now. Last night I slept a measly fifteen."

"Oh," Sam says. "When you put it like that, my three pale in comparison."

Steve just rubs his hands over his face.

"C'mon, what's wrong? Seriously."

Steve rolls his eyes and cocks his head behind toward the bedroom. He's not sure he has the words to explain what's going on with him and Bucky. The trouble -- one of the troubles -- is that Steve's found himself at loose ends since Bucky told him he might leave. Drawing's lost its appeal again; he has no intention of pre-emptively eulogizing what he hasn't yet lost. He'd taken his stack of sketchbooks, including the one he'd barely started, and put it in the duffel bag that used to hold the Cap suits.

Then he'd hung his Cap suits up in the closet.

Bucky had surely noticed, but he hasn't said a thing. In fact, neither of them have said much of anything over the past few days. They seem to be avoiding each other without vocalizing why, orbiting around each other in the apartment, acutely aware of where the other is and not knowing whether to bridge the gap or widen it.

It isn't that they're fighting; in many respects, things stay much the same. Bucky still comes home from the market with new foods to try out. He still brings the finished products to Steve where he's reading on the sofa, or where he's still lying in bed, brushing a kiss across his lips as though to whet his appetite for it. They still curl into each other on the sofa, in the bedroom, in the bathroom when Steve's stepping out of the shower and Bucky's brushing his teeth. Their mouths still find the crooks of each other's necks as though drawn there; they still stumble into hazy lust, coaxing moans from the other's throat with the kind of touch meant to prove what they're having trouble finding the words to say.

That they love each other. That this is worth preserving.

It's just… solemn. Want and need and stubborn affection pound in Steve's chest every second, as though they're weighing him down. He's in mourning for the idealized reality he'd tried to produce, even as he'd known it could never be.

He hadn't been lying. He always had known Bucky might leave him someday. He'd just been doing a great job of pretending that day would never come.

Bucky must feel something, too -- he must feel _something_ \-- because his insomnia burns in him through endless nights, leaving him collapsing into bed long after the break of dawn. He nestles his face against Steve's neck, against the blades of his shoulders, when he comes to bed in the morning -- like he's taking in the smell of him. Steve always stays, not moving a muscle, falling back to sleep for however long it takes Bucky to find his own.

In front of him, Sam nods like he understands, without Steve saying a word of it aloud. Steve feels an intense rush of gratitude. 

"You wanna talk about it?" asks Sam.

"No."

Sam reaches over the bar and grabs a banana from the fruit bowl. "Well, too bad. Spit it out."

"Ehhhh…"

"You thinking of making some kind of impulsive decision again?"

Steve holds Sam's eye a little longer than normal. Sam frowns, like he's afraid of what's coming. "No," Steve finally says. "Actually, the opposite. I think the nation needs Captain America fighting for them right now."

The corners of Sam's mouth turn down, like he'd expected Steve to say it. "Can't argue with that."

But Steve keeps staring. 

Sam's back straightens. "What… are you thinking?"

"I want to run a few drills with you sometime next week, if you've got time."

Sam's eyes narrow. "No."

"You're already a better Captain America than I've ever been."

" _No._ " 

"We've opened lines of negotiation with Stark--"

"No!"

"--I don't think he'd give me the shield, but I think he'll give it to you. You should learn how to handle it if you're going to fill the role permanently."

"Are you listening to me? Hell. No."

Steve opens his mouth to keep talking, but then he sees -- Sam's serious.

Steve hadn't expected that. 

"Why not?" Steve asks.

Sam leans forward. " _Why not?_ Are you kidding me? Have you seen yourself?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Steve, you're fucking miserable."

"Oh. Yeah, but--"

" _Yeah, but?_ "

"You… won't be."

Sam's staring again. Steve gets the mounting impression he's not going to like what follows.

"Are you forgetting I already retired?" Sam asks, briskly.

"But… you got back in."

"To _help you_. I never one time had any desire to take over the mantle. I've never wanted to be a leader. That's why I've been _pushing_ you to get back into it. I'm not meant for--"

"But you are," Steve says, bewildered. "You step up, Sam."

"Because I _have_ to. Not because I want to."

"That's not true. You've been helping Natasha--"

"Exactly. _Helping_ Natasha. Like I helped you. Like I helped Scott. That's my role. I'm support."

"I'm saying you don't have to be."

"That's all I _want_ to be. You think I can take the kind of mission I used to run? You somehow think I'm immune to the shit you've been through? I'm not. I know how much leadership sucks. I got involved with my partner romantically and then he died on a mission that _I_ was running. How the hell do you think that doesn't touch me?"

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it again. He knows what his face must look like. He just doesn't know how to iron it out.

"Meanwhile you're here holed up with your honey like you have the choice not to participate."

"I'll participate," Steve says. "I'm participating. I'm saying I'll back you up."

"And what does that look like, huh? What kind of backup are you talking? Give me specifics here. If I'm the one wearing the suit, where are you?"

"Room support. Making connections. Amassing intel."

"Ah, no. No way." Sam gives a tight shake of the head. "You wanna do that, go work for S.H.I.E.L.D. If you're putting Captain America on me, I want someone on the ground. I'm nothing on my own."

"What? Sam, that's not true."

"Have you been hearing a word I've been saying these past few months? We have to band _together_. I'm not interested in filling a position where I alone am responsible--"

"I'm saying that too!" Steve insists. "I'm saying the responsibility won't be yours alone."

"You don't believe that's possible, or you'd take up the uniform again tomorrow."

"But we do both agree that someone should wear the suit, so I don't see why you're automatically disqualifying yourself. You have more drive, better follow-through, adequate training…"

"Steve! I am not a superhero! Not the way you are."

"That's where you're wrong," Steve says. "That _makes_ you one. I -- have to be here. I set up this destiny for myself, I know that now, for better or worse. But why the hell are you? Just for the good of it? Sam -- that makes you a better Cap than me a thousand times over."

"And you think that's enough?"

"With your training, follow-through, experience, drive?" Steve nods. "Yeah, I do!"

"But you have all of those things and more, and somehow your reasons for not doing it trump mine."

Steve has nothing to say to that. Sam's right; of course he is. They stare each other down, rigid with tension, time sinking like a stone between them. 

Then, slowly, something dawning in his gut, Steve shakes his head from side to side. "You're not gonna like it."

Sam seems to know just what he's thinking. "Don't you dare," he says, pointing. "Don't do it."

"We could…" 

"Steve, do not."

"...share it?"

Sam shuts his eyes tight. "Goddamnit."

"It makes... sense, Sam."

"I hate you so much right now," he mutters into a hand. "You know the expression 'cutting off the nose to spite the face'?"

"Is it different if it's to save the face from a short life of misery?"

Sam stares at him. Steve buries his face in his hands, now, suddenly hating himself just as much. "Look. We'd both have more free time." Yet even as he says it, reluctance edges at the corners of every word. "We could contribute to the fight in more diverse ways, _and_ give the American public a figure to derive hope from. Neither one of us would lead alone. We'd make decisions together, bring things to each other's attention. Make this collaborative. It wouldn't consume either of our lives completely."

"You think I don't spend two weeks recovering from every mission I've run with you?"

"You remember what regular avenging is like."

Sam makes a face. "Vaguely."

"Are you really telling me this has no appeal to you?" Steve ducks to catch Sam's eye. "No part of you wants to fly around Manhattan wearing a Cap suit a couple days a week?"

Despite himself, he smirks a little. "Giant 'fuck you' to the present administration."

"That's what I'm saying."

Sam sighs heavily. "You act like that's all it is. Flying around."

"I guess I do."

"We both know better."

"Yeah. We do. But we also both know we wouldn't feel fulfilled unless we were doing something with direct impact at the end of the day. You and me, Sam -- we need to do something we can touch. Something we can see, something we can _understand_. We need to see our work at work, or we start to get restless. Tell me I'm wrong."

Sam's shaking his head, slow and annoyed, but Steve can see the truth of it right on his face. "You piss me off. You know that?"

It might be the first time Steve's cracked a smile in days. "Yeah, Sam. I know."

"Don't presume to know me."

"You and me approach the same issues from different directions. You get a bird's eye view. Don't fault me just because I only see things in two dimensions."

"I will absolutely fault you. You see in exactly one dimension. You gotta learn to turn your head, man."

"Okay," Steve says, easy. He's still smiling. He can't figure out why. "I'll learn. I promise. Top of the list."

Sam rolls his eyes, but he's fighting a smile, too, and suddenly all Steve can think about is -- how nice this is. How much he's missed it.

"So are we doing this?" Steve says, voice falling a little soft.

Sam leans back in his chair and looks to the ceiling, rubbing exhaustedly at his face. "I guess… it's worth a shot. If you want to share."

"I do."

Then they smile at each other, a little. They're more than a little tired -- but they have a way ahead. A good one.

"Are you gonna let me show you how to handle the shield?" Steve asks, abrupt.

"I know how to handle the shield," Sam snaps.

"I've seen you try to throw it. You do not know how to handle the shield."

"Just because I don't use it as a decapitation device--"

"Hey. I aim for unconsciousness."

"You do not succeed."

There's a noise from behind him, and then Bucky emerges from the depths of the bedroom. "Is he being a hypocrite about this again?" he asks Sam as he walks in, and he looks impossibly soft. Like this, rumpled with sleep, Steve's drawn to him like a moth to flame. "This one time in Bucharest," Bucky goes on, glancing at Sam with heavy eyelids, "he caught a guy from falling down a stairwell after I kicked him there and looked at me like _I_ was an asshole. I already knew for a fact he would kick a guy through a 46th storey window if he was annoying him too much. It was fucking classic Steve Rogers. That morality that somehow doesn't include him."

"That's -- none of that is true," Steve objects. "I wouldn't kick a man to his death _on purpose._ "

"No," Sam agrees. "You'd just let Natasha do it."

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it. "If you're talking about that time with the Hydra agent, he -- you were there to _catch_ him. That counts for…"

But Bucky just kisses Steve's frown as he passes. "You're a menace," he says. Then he opens the fridge and stares into it, seemingly too tired to quite know what he's looking for. 

Sam, worryingly, is watching Bucky's every move with an odd level of scrutiny. Steve frowns at him, but Sam just straightens in his chair as though with a budding idea.

"Barnes," he says slowly.

"What," Bucky asks, not turning.

"What are you planning for how to get back in the fight?"

Bucky turns abruptly, still bleary. "What?" He shakes his head, as though to be clear of the intrusion of Sam's question. "Jesus. Don't ambush me with that. I don't fucking know, Wilson. Let me wake up first."

"Are you sure you don't know?" Sam says. "I was listening to you when we were talking about the Stark Tower heist. You were quiet, but you weren't saying no."

Anxiety ripples visibly over Bucky's face, but he forces it down in a rapid beat. He chews on his lip, peeling the skin from it with his teeth. "There's no way in hell I would've gone into Stark Tower without an invitation," he grinds out.

"But you wanted to help, right?"

Bucky stares a while. "I've been thinking about it," he says, quiet. "About how. But I don't…"

Sam nods, like he understands. Steve frowns between them, confused. He can't shake the feeling like they've communicated about this, but he can't think when or how.

"No pressure," Sam says in warning.

Bucky seems to intuit what's coming and recoils his neck back.

"But I see you carrying the shield, too."

Bucky stares at him a long time, looking as though he's come across something he doesn't want to deal with; and then, abruptly, he bursts into a laugh. 

"Are you _high_?"

"You already look five years younger with that haircut," Sam goes on. "Keep it shorter, stay clean-shaven… no reason anyone should clue into who you are."

"You _are_ high. Hydra--"

"Hydra's not even looking for you anymore. You know that."

But judging from the shudders wracking through him as he stares, Bucky hadn't known that at all. "I -- what?" he bites finally, licking lips white with tension. "What? _What_ do I know?"

Sam stares at him -- then, finally, he looks to Steve. "Did you not…?"

Steve shakes his head. "We burned them," he says softly. "Without looking."

"Neither one of you looked?"

Both shake their heads -- Steve slightly, Bucky very tense.

Sam sighs in realization and leans back in his chair, arms crossed. "Barnes," he says -- compassionate, if a little impatient. "When you went dark on Hydra, they looked for you for a little over a year. After Karpov went to Cleveland for no reason we can tell, it looks like Hydra concluded that they were never gonna find you without significant casualties. They knew how well you were trained. Hunting you down was deemed an unacceptable risk."

Bucky stares at him, mouth slightly agape. "I don't buy it," he finally says.

"That's what the file said."

"All that proves is what they put into their files. Doesn't prove the fact of it."

Sam raises his hands. "I think it's worth consideration that they know you're too good to be found."

"I was found once." He jerks his head in Steve's direction.

"Extenuating circumstances."

"I want evidence," Bucky says. "Of this. Before I believe it."

"You burned the evidence," Sam says simply. "You burned the only copy."

"Bullshit."

"Fine -- you burned the only copy _we found_. If you want to case more Hydra bases to find the evidence yourself, that's your prerogative, but--"

"I find a Hydra base, I plan to blow it up, no questions asked." Bucky puts a metal finger down hard against the counter. "That's a fundamental piece of information you seem to be missing in this _negotiation_. You want me to moonlight as Captain fucking America? Sorry -- I'm not good enough for it. You asked me what I plan to do to get back in the fight? Honestly, my mind's on revenge and that's about it."

Sam just purses his lips and looks to Steve. "Well, first of all, we've blown up a lot of buildings in the name of what we do, so I'm not convinced that's a fair--"

"I'm talking about human beings, Wilson. I'm talking about obliterating the scientists Romanov worked so hard to humanize trying to assure me the conference wasn't a threat." He shrugs, desperate. "I don't care about their humanity. They didn't care about mine."

Sam takes this under serious consideration; nods, like he understands. "But you should," he finally says.

Bucky waits, like there must be something he's missing. "I should -- what? Care about _their humanity_?"

"Care about yours."

Bucky blinks, taken aback.

"I hear you talking like you're gonna operate alone, like you're gonna make taking them down your only business. It sounds like you think you're gonna do it without help--" Sam's eyes flit to Steve as though he's intuited that Bucky might be thinking of leaving-- "and I have concerns about that, as should you."

"Oh, _god_. Shut the fuck up. You don't get to say--"

"I'm saying you might wanna take some measures," Sam says, voice steady, no part of him rising to Bucky's vitriol, "against becoming what they wanted you to be. Listen to me -- you're not the Soldier. That much is clear. It's clear to me, it's sure as hell clear to Steve, and I hope by now it's clear to you too. But we also know you've got him in your head, and that presents a situation. You wanna use his skills to get back at them?" Sam shrugs. "Fine. I think you've been through what you have and have your abilities, taking the fuckers down who did this to you is therapeutic as hell and downright necessary to boot." He winces. "Don't tell Marcella I said that."

Bucky's mouth actually tightens into something like a smile.

"But you better balance the scales or you'll lose yourself." Sam puts two fingers down hard on the counter. "Here's your opportunity. Structure. Support. There's no word for what you've been through, Barnes, and everyone in this room knows that sometimes your head isn't quite clear. There's no shame in that, but maybe you need help from the hands of folks who care about you to run you straight every once in a while."

Bucky shakes his head. "What I need is freedom. End of list."

"So I don't wholly disagree. But what is freedom to you? What's freedom to live gonna look like if you start having trouble living with yourself?"

"I already have trouble living with myself."

"Okay. Between the three of us, we've probably killed a thousand civilians. At least. We've all been to war. We all know the score. The price of freedom has always been high. In our case it includes parts of our souls. But right now, we're all also lucky enough to have people who love us setting us straight. Giving us context. You care about freedom? Fight for everyone to have it. I gotta say, I don't see how you're not about that." 

Bucky won't look at him, or at Steve, or at anything but the floor. Steve sees him swallow hard.

"I can't tell you how to live, Barnes. But making other people believe they're entitled to freedom kinda feels like it might be in your wheelhouse. I also don't think it's the risk it seems. With three people sharing the identity, all of us with distinct styles… we'll look inconsistent, we'll be harder to track down. We'll be three fugitives trying to balance the scales." Sam shrugs, like it's all so easy. "I dare you to find a better use for your ill-begotten skills than that."

Something about it seems to strike true, because Bucky's looking at Sam and breathing hard, like he's trying to figure out how to fight it but can't.

Sam doesn't say or do anything except hold Bucky's eye; then, finally, Bucky turns to look at Steve, like he's not sure what to do.

"Do you want… my encouragement?" Steve says, voice forced soft by the pound of his heart. "Because I…" He pauses to lick his lips, frantic with emotion. "I think it's… yeah. Bucky, yeah. If you want to. I... think you'd make a really great Captain America."

Bucky blinks at him, then at Sam, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Listen to me," he says, voice coarse. "The things I do, the way I do them… it doesn't change that none of that aligns with the image the two of you want to project."

But Sam's already shaking his head. "Man, we are all soldiers. Every one of us. You're a little better trained in the act of killing than the rest of us, but -- I'll be honest with you -- not that much more than me. And speaking for myself? Trying to do things more like our boy here is the only thing that's kept me sane the last three years." He gestures at Steve and then shrugs, as though as helpless to the awful reality of it as the rest of them. "God knows he's inexact, but watching someone try really hard not to kill people to neutralize a situation has helped produce a different outcome."

Steve huffs sudden amusement. " _So_ close to paying me a compliment."

"You fuck up a lot," Sam says breezily, not looking at him, and Steve can't help but crack a grin again. "Doing good with the skills we have is a fight, Barnes. I don't need to tell you that. But it's a fight worth taking on, and -- from my point of view -- you already know how to do it. I've seen you fight people who don't deserve what you can give them, and you're defensive. When you're yourself -- when you're the man you want to be -- all I ever see is you fighting to get them and yourself out of the situation. You'll be endlessly better off fighting this war with folks at your back who are fighting the same damn thing as you are every day." 

On Bucky's face -- far from panic -- is careful contemplation. Steve wonders if he's thinking of Dum-Dum and Morita and Dernier and Gabe, the way he is. 

Sam throws his banana peel at him. "I guess I'm trying to say, Barnes, that I don't think you're that fucking special."

"Thank you," Bucky shoots back, pulling it blandly off his face.

"And I can't tell what you really _want_ to do, but if your options are to work alone or to spend at least some of your time reconstructing with people who are doing their best to get you, I know which one sounds more like what I've seen from you so far."

Bucky stares at him, a little suspicious, but the anxiety's stopped wracking through him as bad. "You trust me?" he asks Sam eventually, swallowing hard.

Sam nods, slow. "Enough."

Bucky nods, too. "That's good. Keep your suspicions."

"I wouldn't call them suspicions."

"Whatever they are. This brain's hardly a good ally to anyone. It hasn't ended well for you before."

"You're working hard, I can see that," Sam says. "That's all I can ask."

"And I need more time. I'm not -- right enough. Yet."

"That's fine," Sam says. "So do I. Steve's talking like he wants to train, for one thing, and if there's two of you now I gotta figure out how to keep up." Sam smiles, thin, like he's already anticipating spending the next months in pain. "So we'll train, take measures. No one's gonna push you to do what you're not ready for."

Bucky nods, takes a breath deep into his lungs; then, letting it out, he looks to Steve with worry. "You good with this?"

Steve opens his mouth and then closes it. "Are you… asking me if I want you to stay?"

Bucky smiles, a tense thing, awfully shy. "Yeah?" he says, helpless.

"Come on," Steve breathes. "You, here? It's the only thing I want. It's the only thing I've ever..."

He trails off, throat thick. Bucky clenches his jaw, brow flickering with feeling. "You might come to regret that."

"No," Steve says instantly. He shrugs, hands falling hard against his thighs. "No, I won't."

And just like that, resolve -- _settles._

"Okay," Sam says, a little grim, as they each turn to him in time. "The Captains America."

Bucky, inexplicably, laughs. "Jesus Christ. For better or worse."

"Guess we've got a lot of ground to make up," says Steve.

They look between the three of them and seem, collectively, to take a breath.

"I don't want to talk to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Steve admits suddenly.

"Oh, god," Sam says. "Don't put that on me, I'm already talking to Stark."

"Well, I'm not doing it," Bucky says.

"Jesus Christ," Sam says, setting accusatory eyes on Bucky. "You gonna talk to anyone?"

"Not if I can possibly help it, no."

Sam looks at Steve. "You're gonna have to do something about your boy."

Steve grins and grabs three beers out of the fridge, still -- months later -- leftover from housewarming. "Nah."

"I'm still gonna be the third goddamned wheel, aren't I?" Sam mutters. "I can't believe I didn't think about this. I take it back. I don't want to be Cap anymore."

"Too late," Bucky says.

"Already agreed," says Steve. "No takebacks."

Bucky slams the lid of his beer against the edge of the counter while Steve passes the opener to Sam. "To Captain America," Sam says, raising his high.

Steve shakes his head. "To us," he corrects.

"God help us all," Bucky says.

Then, out of things to say, they just languish in silence, trying not to suffocate under august expectations.

  



	9. Chapter 9

  


As though driven to it by tradition, they order pizza: one pepperoni, one with anchovies. As the pizza arrives, so too does Natasha, significant booze resources in tow.

"Sam texted," she says, looking between them. "I'd say congratulations are in order, but I'm guessing none of you actually feel that way."

"You guessed right," Bucky says, picking up the vodka with interest. "Is this gonna get me drunk?"

"It's gonna do its damndest to try."

And so they wile away the afternoon into the evening, alternating between solemnity and joy, laughter abounding and yet always pulled down, the four of them still bound by shared adventure. Before they know it they're sitting on the floor of the balcony at three in the morning, drunk by alcohol or by the atmosphere of it, passing bottles around with their legs extended long.

"We're gonna have to move back to the city," Bucky says, after a long period of silence.

"The thought had occurred to me," Steve says. He looks to Bucky. "You good with that?"

"Yeah," Bucky says. He shrugs. "Might even be safer. I know how to stay under the radar in cities. I don't like that Hydra's headquartered there, but… hell. It might kick me into action a little easier if I know they're next door."

"Still wanna live with me?" Steve says, deepening his voice in self-mockery.

Bucky smirks. "If you'll have me."

"Always."

"Aww," says Natasha.

"Shut up, Romanov," says Bucky.

"You wanna get a place?" Sam says to Natasha, arm slung over her shoulder in a rare but undeniable sign of affection.

Natasha's face goes stony at once. "I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that."

"I don't mean -- I _meant_ \--"

"I know what you meant," she says slowly, "and no."

Bucky smiles, for some reason. Natasha clicks her tongue at him. "You shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"I know you like me more than you let on," Sam continues, ignoring Bucky altogether. "We tolerated each other fine in Europe--"

" _You_ might have."

Sam looks affronted. "It doesn't have to be like that."

Natasha looks to Bucky. "Is this what negotiating with Steve is like?"

"I'm willing to bet you get ninety percent less puppy eyes."

"You'd be surprised," Natasha mumbles, kicking Sam in the leg.

"Ow," says Sam.

"We could all get a place together," says Steve. "Cap central, plus Natasha."

"Nat could be Cap," Sam says.

"No she could not," Natasha says. "I work alone."

"I tried to say that," Bucky says. "They wouldn't let me."

"We're not forcing you to do anything," Sam says. "Go rogue if you want."

"No," Bucky says, defiant. "Fuck you, you talked me into it. You're stuck with me now."

"I definitely want to live in Brooklyn," Steve muses. "I wonder how fast my savings would deplete."

"We gotta figure out how to monetize this gig," Sam says. "Charge per life saved."

"Don't even joke about that," says Steve.

"We should charge the people that put them at risk," Bucky says.

Sam points at him. "I like the way you think. Villain's fee."

"I was thinking more like 'loot their shit,' but sure."

Natasha laughs. Sam sighs, heavy. "We're never gonna agree on any damn thing, are we?"

"Nope," say Steve and Bucky at once, then clink the necks of their beers against each other.

"I've made a terrible mistake," Sam says. Natasha only pats him fondly on the knee.

"You knew that going in, dear."

"Guess I did."

"Is DUMBO expensive now?" asks Steve. "I always forget."

"DUMBO's expensive now," Sam agrees. "But it's not impossible to find housing in Brooklyn. We'll find you a place."

"You too, Sam," Steve says. "If you want."

"Man, I dunno. Feel like I'm gonna need a break from the two of you sometimes."

"Bucky cooks," Steve says. "I clean. All you have to do is put up with us."

But Bucky's smirking ominously. Sam frowns at him, then opens his mouth to ask why, then seems to think better of it. "We'll see," he says. "Feel like I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in Stark Tower next few months, trying to negotiate stability. We'll see what opens up."

"We could afford DUMBO," Bucky says to his beer. "If you'd just let me…"

Steve frowns sharply at him. "No!"

"One wire transfer." He shrugs idly. "Wouldn't be that hard."

"That's the kind of thing that's gonna make you traceable real fast, Barnes," Natasha warns.

"Not if we break into--"

" _No,_ " Steve says.

"I'm just saying, I saw those plans to break into Stark Tower. They weren't perfect, but there were things to learn from--"

"Bucky," Steve warns.

Bucky grins and tips his head back. "Fuck. Rogers, I gotta tell you, the thing I missed the most… when I was trying to unearth myself, back in Europe." Bucky gestures loosely, like he's trying to coax the words out, and Steve's just impressed he's talking about this at all with Sam and Natasha here to bear witness. "Was the ways you used to say my name. Like that one." He points at Steve. "That's rare. You warning me off something instead of the other way around. Still fucking thrills in me, Rogers. You still got me on the ropes with that shit sometimes."

Steve smiles, a little; brushes his foot against Bucky's where their legs are pressed flush. "Bucky," he says, grinning at the way it sounds in his throat. "Bucky, Bucky, Bucky."

Bucky grins, too; moves his head where it's leaning against the wall so he can see Steve, if barely, without craning his neck. "God, you get these voices sometimes. You remember the first time we met?"

"Boy, do I."

"You used that exact voice on me, and it worked on me _so bad_ …"

"You say that like I did it on purpose," Steve says. "You always like to talk about my voices, like I'm playing you somehow. This is just what I sound like."

"Yeah. You should like a guy who does voices to get what he wants."

"To get what I _want_?"

"Listen," Bucky says again, and this time he's addressing Sam and Natasha. "This is what happened the day we met. You ever hear this story?"

"No," they say at once. They look tired but content, and for a second, Steve's just thankful to see them there -- after all this time, all of them friends.

"So Stevie here gets in a fight with a kid at least thrice his size." And for all his talk of voices, already Bucky's voice has changed -- it's become that Brooklyn thing, the voice he used to go under cover in Chicago, with a lean behind it, a bit of a ring, as though it's been coaxed out of him by the mention of Brooklyn alone. "So it's 1924, right? This kid is six years old, and Stevie says to this guy--"

"Stop calling me Stevie," Steve mutters, closing his eyes, just enjoying the sound of Bucky's voice.

"--Steve says to this guy, 'Now listen here and listen close. My Pop was the hardest working man I ever seen and he was strong to the day he died.'"

"He wouldn't shut his mouth about veterans' _laziness._ Was I supposed to just take that kind of talk?"

"So then our own Steve Rogers is getting his ass beat at six years old, and you can tell by the way his arms fly up around his face that it's not for the first time. And I'm standing a few feet away watching him take a few punches shaking my head at what a damned idiot he is when I can hear him start to _wheeze_. And that's what sucks me in, you know? Pipsqueaks like him got their backsides thrashed up and down Main Street all the time back in the day, it was basically a rite of passage, but you don't let a guy who can't defend himself get knocked unconscious, even if he did introduce dumbassery into the conversation his own damn self."

"You sound so stupid right now, I'm actually embarrassed for you," Steve says.

"So I step in and it turns out I know the kid who's beating Steve up, and he already doesn't like me, but he also knows as well as anyone that I can get a decent shot in. So all I really gotta to do the guy is stand up in front of him and pretend to be Stevie's brother."

"His _brother,_ " says Sam, incredulous.

"You don't exactly look alike," says Nat.

"And yet all he says," Bucky continues, "once he calms down enough, is 'you keep your brother in line,' and I say 'I surely will.'"

"And you surely do," Steve says, flushed with fondness.

"And I surely do," Bucky agrees. "But I probably wouldn't have if you hadn't used that _voice_ on me."

"Here we go," Steve mutters into the air.

"So I introduce myself to this dumbass," Bucky says, sounding just as fond as Steve feels, "and by then he's taken two kicks to the gut that he clearly cannot withstand. So the first ten minutes of our relationship is spent with me trying to get him to sit up straight and to breathe deep into his lungs, and he tells me he's got asthma, which I already figured out on account of my cousin having the same, but he says it'll clear up on its own, and eventually it does. And the _very_ next thing that comes out of his mouth after fifteen minutes of wheezing is, 'You don't look like a Jimmy to me.' This kid's had his ass kicked once already today and he's going out of his way to argue with me about my _own name_."

Natasha and Sam start laughing at once, as though it may as well be the most typical Steve Rogers story they've ever heard.

"So at this point I'm astounded. I've got nothing to say to that. I just crouch down in front of him and I say, 'And just what the hell is your name?' and he says 'Steve Rogers' so I say 'You look a lot more like a dipstick to me.' He ignores me outright, obviously, and continues to haggle with me about my own name. And at this point I'm sitting there stunned, because never in my life has anyone tried to argue with me about such a non-issue in my life. He goes on and on about it. I'm serious. I didn't choose it. And he's sitting there telling me that it's an injustice I was named this way when I'm so clearly not who I claim to be." Bucky shakes his head and licks his lips, like his mouth can't quite keep up with the pace of his words. "And to be honest with you, I don't even remember exactly how we got to the point that we did, but eventually he had to say that I was at least more of a James than I was like a Jimmy, and even more of a Barnes than I was a James, and by the time we get to the fact of my middle name he snaps his fingers and says, 'That's it, you're a Bucky,' and then he doesn't call me anything else for the rest of my damn life."

"Bucky," Steve says, soft and fond. "Bucky, Bucky, Bucky."

"That's the voice," Bucky says, and points at him. "That's the voice that sucked me in. I couldn't get rid of you after that. Left school, you still showed up. Went off to war, there you were. Turned up an assassin in the twenty-first century…" The smile falls off his face, and just like that, he stops being the kid from Brooklyn and turns into this Bucky again -- the one with shadows dancing his eyes. "And there the fuck you were again," he finishes, the gravel entrenching itself back in his tone.

Just like that, the whole balcony grows sombre. Steve slips his foot beneath the hem of Bucky's pantleg; scans it gentle against the outline of his ankle, as though in tacit support.

"So, yeah," Bucky says, and tips his head back to take a long swig of beer. "That's what I'm talking about when I say you've got voices."

"But so do you," Natasha points out, oddly gentle.

Bucky thinks about this a while, clenching his jaw. "I guess that's true," he admits eventually. "I guess we all do."

The thought sits with them, roots in them; keeps them sitting still.

In the far distance, a thin line of white starts to hint at the skyline.

Sam rubs a hand at his eyes. "Christ," he whispers, sounding tired. "Just four fucked-up people sitting on this balcony, huh?"

And maybe the booze has managed to affect Steve after all, or maybe it's just the way warmth seems to grow in his chest in time with the sun's slow climb, but Steve smiles, small, helpless to it all. "Kinda something, isn't it?"

Sam, Natasha, and Bucky all roll their heads to him in unison. "What," Sam says flatly.

"Think about it," Steve says. "We're here. We made it this far. We made it to another day." He takes a deep and steadying breath; lets it out slow, slow, slow as he can. "It's far from perfect, but… we're doing it. We're doing what we can. Thank God. Four fucked up people still trying their best." He looks at Bucky and swallows hard. "Gotta count for something, right?"

On Steve's other side, Natasha relaxes her neck; lets her head rest at Sam's shoulder in a rare show of affection, and Bucky takes up Steve's hand and brushes a kiss against his knuckles. 

"It all counts, Rogers," Bucky tells him, his voice run low; and then he sighs, like he's not sure if he's glad of it or not. "I guess it all fucking counts, at the end of the day."

In the pale and distant horizon, the sun rises, as stubborn as them.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man! This fic was a trip. I wrote most of this story in July and August 2016 while I was writing most of [heal your heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7175369), but I wound up removing 26k of material from this thing and rewriting much of the last six chapters in the last four months. Thanks for bearing with me as I got organized with that.
> 
> One of the biggest changes was that the story originally ended with Steve exiting retirement only after Bucky convinced him to do it. With this new approach I wanted to show that Sam, Steve, and Bucky all had different reasons for taking up the shield and were really only united by the fact that it meant returning to a war none of them wanted to fight because they felt it was necessary in some moral centre they all share. Another fairly significant change was undertaken in November, when I realized I wanted to write a Steve who was more compelled to do good and less dogged about his intentions to retire. Politics shifted my priorities, and so they did with Steve, too. I did keep all my deleted material, so I may end up posting a series of "expat" oneshots from this universe at some point, though it won't be in keeping with the direction I ended up taking here.
> 
> Apart from that, the Steve/Bucky portion of this series is basically concluded. I have a Sam/Nat parallel fic in the works, but apart from that I don't have significant plans to add to the series. It is, in that respect, open-ended; they never solve the problem of Hydra's resurgence, they don't really figure out how to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. or with Tony in any coherent way, because that shit takes time and wasn't gonna be wrapped up in the domestic atmosphere I was aiming for in this fic. The choice was intentional, as was the choice not quite to give resolution to Bucky's journey through the course of this thing; it was kind of in keeping with the theme of the never-ending war. It may read unsatisfactory for that reason, and I apologize for that. I do, however, have a few fics (and a few more WIPs, but I can't promise much there) that are internally consistent with this universe. I always thought of them as optional sequels, if you're looking for more:
> 
> -[Rituals](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8834020) \-- Christmas, 1933-2017  
> -[Wash the Blood From Your Bony Fingers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8875549) \-- the boys get de-aged to 18, separately; takes place in 2018  
> -[From Tralfamadore, With Love](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11692368) \-- diverges from a later point in 2018
> 
> Thank you again for sticking with me. Parts of this series contain true pieces of my heart, and I was so glad to be able to share it with you. You can find me, if you wish, on [tumblr](http://newsbypostcard.tumblr.com/).


End file.
